


There Are Worse Things I Could Do

by jujus_writing_corner



Category: Real Person Fiction, Youtube RPF
Genre: Angst, Feelings Realization, M/M, Mugging (not done by mains), One Night Stand (almost), Pining, Robbery, Running Away, Sequel to Hopelessly Devoted to You, Slow Burn, Strangulation (not done to mains), this is kinda rough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21708946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujus_writing_corner/pseuds/jujus_writing_corner
Summary: After a week of strained silence following Yancy’s accidental confession to Illinois, Yancy reaches the end of his rope and runs away from Ego, Inc. Yancy struggles to survive on the streets as Lio struggles with his own guilt. Will they find their way back to each other, or will Yancy stay away forever?
Relationships: Yancy/Female OC, Yancy/Illinois
Comments: 96
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _I knew who you were from the start  
>  I just hoped you’d prove me wrong_  
> -Gabbie Hanna, “Butterflies”
> 
> Ohh, I'm excited about this one! Yes, this is a direct sequel to HDTY. I'll try to update once a week. I don't expect it to get longer or shorter than 10 chapters. We'll see what happens. Either way, expect ANGST >:3
> 
> By the way, check out the playlist I made to go with this fic! It has every song that I reference in the notes, and plenty more :D  
> URL: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3hiWWzkmqCCeBlLHJtbFPs?si=biKTU2rnQq-HpfdIfDAFpQ  
> Spotify Link: spotify:playlist:3hiWWzkmqCCeBlLHJtbFPs
> 
> Enjoy!

After Yancy’s confession, he avoids Illinois completely.

He can’t stand to be near him after that horrific crash and burn, and he can’t stand how badly he still wants him, even after that rejection. If he tries to hang out with Lio again who knows what he’ll say, who knows how much more of a fool he’ll make of himself? It’s better to stay away.

It’s just as well, because the heartbreak and rage don’t go away overnight. He barely sleeps the night after it happened, and he wakes up still raw. Yandere stays near, alternating between fretting over Yancy, trying to soothe his tears and quiet his anger, and begging Yancy to let him “talk” to Lio, with eyes shining blood red. But Yancy won’t let him, that’s not what he wants. Yandere offers to go to Bim on his behalf, maybe speak to Marvin about a love potion, but Yancy doesn’t want that either.

Yancy doesn’t want to force Lio’s love, he doesn’t want to make him do anything. The best he can hope for now is to get over it, move on, and resume his friendship…if it’s still salvageable.

Lio doesn’t try to talk to Yancy, either.

When they pass each other in the halls, Lio pulls his hat down over his eyes. They both have phones, but Lio doesn’t try to text. He stays away from Yancy’s room just as Yancy stays away from his. Yancy doesn’t know if Lio feels awkward or disgusted or guilty or what, but he’s not about to talk to him to find out.

After two long, agonizing days of Yancy mulling over the confession and avoiding Lio, Captain Magnum returns from his latest voyage.

Yancy doesn’t greet him right away, as much as he wants to. Lio’s likely going to greet him, too, and Yancy doesn’t want to run into him yet. A few hours after Magnum returns, Yancy hears him knock on his door.

“Ye in there, mate?” Magnum asks, “I ain’t seen ye since I got home.”

“Yeah,” Yancy mumbles. He’s sitting on his bed, holding his pillow to his chest. He lets his face fall into it, muffling his words. “Come in.”

Magnum comes in, bending slightly to get through the doorway. His tree-trunk feet thunk along the floor as Magnum walks to Yancy.

“What’s troublin’ ye, lad?” Magnum asks. He sits down on the side of Yancy’s bed, and the whole thing creaks under the weight. Yancy hardly notices. He shrugs at Magnum’s question.

“Somethin’ happened while you were away, s’all.” Yancy says, not looking up from his pillow.

“Aye, I gathered,” Magnum answers. He leans closer, and the bed protests. “Are ye up for sharin’?”

Yancy finally looks up from his pillow at him. As huge and intimidating as Magnum always appears, his heart is big enough to match his stature. He looks at Yancy with gentle concern, with earnest desire to figure out what’s wrong and help his friend out. Yancy can’t help but acquiesce to it.

“I guess,” he mumbles. He scoots forward, pillow still in his hands, and ends up in Magnum’s lap. Magnum hugs Yancy easily, enclosing him completely.

It was a common ritual for them back before Ego Inc., on days where Yancy itched from all the freedom, days where he just needed to be somewhere quiet, protected, tight. With the cells of Happy Trails far behind him, Magnum’s hold is just as good, and Magnum doesn’t mind in the slightest. Yancy sighs, already feeling better with Magnum’s arms tight around him. It feels like safety, like protection.

But he did say he’d tell Magnum what’s going on. He’s worried about that, worried Magnum might think oddly of him for this. As far as Yancy knows, Magnum doesn’t know how he feels. He sure as hell never told him. He has to confess it all over again.

_“Well, it can’t go any worse than last time.”_

The thought almost makes him start crying, but he takes a shaky breath in instead.

“S’about Lio,” Yancy says, “I…I’m into him. I’ve been into him for a while. I meant to just keep it to myself, but…” He sniffles. Dammit, he’s going to cry. “But I told him by accident. An’ he rejected me, ‘cause why wouldn’t he? He ain’t the committin’ type, and I ain’t no prize, but now…we ain’t talked since. That was a couple days ago.”

There’s a few moments of silence as Magnum ponders what he’s been told. It’s not the painful, heavy silence that happened after Yancy’s confession to Lio, but something much lighter, thoughtful. Magnum wears how he feels on his sleeve, he exudes his emotions like he has his own aura. Yancy doesn’t have to lift his face from Magnum’s chest to know the expression on Magnum’s face.

“I had the feelin’ it had to do with Lio,” Magnum muses, “He’s been mighty scarce today, just as ye have.” He ruffles Yancy’s hair with a huge hand. “But ye and he are goin’ to have to talk one o’ these days, mate.”

“I know that,” Yancy whimpers, “But the hell am I gonna say?? I already said too much. And it still…” He sniffles again. “It still really hurts.”

“Ah, me poor lad…” Magnum murmurs, hugging Yancy tighter. Part of Yancy wishes Magnum would just crush him right there with his bare hands, so he wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore. Of course Magnum never would, though.

“I don’t got much in the way o’ advice,” Magnum admits, “But I do know that the sooner ye clear the air, the better you’ll feel.”

“I guess,” Yancy says. He’s not sure he believes it.

“Perhaps I can have a chat with Lio meself,” Magnum suggests, “See if I can’t get him to speak with ye.”

“Maybe,” Yancy sighs. He doesn’t want Magnum to pressure Lio into anything, but then again, Magnum knows when not to be pushy. Maybe something will change this way.

But it doesn’t.

A few more days pass, and Lio doesn’t come to Yancy. Yancy still can’t bring himself to go to him. Magnum does his best to cajole them into interacting, but nothing works. Yancy feels worse as hours pass, worse at Lio, worse at himself. He feels bad for not taking Magnum’s advice, he feels bad for making him feel torn between his two best friends. He feels bad for worrying Yandere, too; the poor guy’s beside himself trying to help Yancy feel better. But Yancy’s never had a relationship failure that wasn’t a catastrophic meltdown, and this is the worst one yet.

A week after his confession, he leaves Ego Inc. one night, alone, to get some fresh air. He walks around the city, goes to a park, sits on a bench by a pond. He stares out at the water and wonders if Lio is sleeping right now. Maybe Lio’s awake, too, staring at his ceiling and wondering how everything got so wrong. Maybe Lio’s packing up his bags for an expedition so he can get away from Yancy’s confession in the morning. Maybe Lio’s taking a walk just like Yancy, maybe he’s somewhere else in the city trying to think about something else. Maybe he’s in this very park, right at this very moment.

That thought almost makes Yancy want to get up and go somewhere else, but he doesn’t. He’s too tired, too sore from tears.

He doesn’t mean to stay there all night, but the next thing he knows, he’s waking up with a crick in his neck to see dew on the grass and early morning fog in the air.

He means to go home, he means to wander back to Ego Inc. and go back to sleep in his own bed, but instead he watches ducks gather on the surface of the pond, dipping their heads to grab waterbugs. There’s some in pairs, the green-headed mallards with the brown speckled hens. There’s even a handful of ducklings paddling after a lone hen, and their incessant, squeaky peeping is the only sound in the quiet morning.

The morning grows late, Yancy stays where he is. More ducks come and go. His phone rings suddenly, and he looks to see Yandere’s name there. He sends it to voicemail. He expects that to be his only interruption; Magnum still hasn’t gotten the hang of most modern technology. But a few minutes later, Lio’s name lights up his screen. A rush of anger fills him.

_“Oh, NOW he wants to talk!?”_

He means to send him to voicemail, go home, and avoid Lio like normal.

Instead, he throws his phone into the pond, scaring the ducks, and walks away in the opposite direction of Ego Inc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You’re never gonna love me  
>  So what’s the use?  
> What’s the point in playing  
> A game you’re gonna lose?_  
> -MARINA, “Lies”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to post late, I was hanging out with family today ^^"
> 
> Enjoy!

As the morning gets later into noon, Yancy continues his walk towards…somewhere. He can’t say where exactly. Anywhere but home, anywhere but where Lio is.

His stomach growls, and he decides he ought to go somewhere with food, at least. He doesn’t have any money, but he knows how to play a stranger’s heartstrings. He knew a lot of people at Happy Trails who were used to living on the streets, and who knew how to survive with no money in their pocket and no means to earn it. They talked about it a lot, gave their tips and tricks to other prisoners readily. Yancy hadn’t planned on needing them, but he absorbed them anyway, just by hearing them over and over. He’s glad for it, now.

He pauses suddenly, realizing how he’s thinking. He’s thinking like he’s homeless, but he’s not. He could go back to Ego Inc. right now for lunch. He doesn’t need to stay out here and guilt people into giving him food.

_“But Lio is at Ego Inc. He called this morning, he might still want to talk to youse.”_

Yancy thought he’d wanted that before, but now the thought fills him with terror.

He keeps walking.

He finds the nearest fast food place, waits in line, and puts on his acting face when he gets to the front. He keeps it simple; a cheeseburger and a cup for water. When he’s told the total (barely more than a dollar), he rummages through his pockets, keeping a look on his face like he already knew he had nothing but was hoping the money would just materialize (a pretty genuine emotion at this point). He borrows just a little of the awkward, uncomfortable grief that Lio stirs in his chest to tell the cashier that he has no money on him. It must’ve been convincing, because instead of another customer stepping in, the cashier rings it through with her own debit card, pulled out of her pocket.

“Oh, geez, youse didn’t have to do that, miss…” Yancy mumbles, only partly an act. The cashier is a young woman, probably doing her best to live with meager food service wages. Yancy can’t help but feel bad for his dishonesty.

“It’s okay,” she says, unruffled and smiling, “It’s only a dollar. Here’s your receipt, they’ll call your number when the food’s ready. Have a good one!”

Yancy thanks her as profusely as he can without holding up the line. Despite his guilt over tricking a kind young woman, the burger still tastes pretty good.

When he leaves the restaurant, he shivers as the cold outside air hits him. The season is late, the cold is ever-present. He has nothing but his standard black-striped pants, white t-shirt, and a black sweater that Yandere gave him a while ago. Yancy decides he could use a hat and gloves, maybe a scarf.

_“Am I really doin’ this? Am I really not going home?”_

_“Not yet. Later, but not yet. No sense in freezing in the meantime.”_

He takes off his sweater and pulls his trusty box of cigarettes out from his t-shirt sleeve. He’s had it since before he left Happy Trails, but he doesn’t smoke. He’d trade for cigarettes in prison if he thought he could get something better for it later. Giving up a rare dessert for a box of cigarettes was worth it if the guard on solitary duty could be bribed with them. Maybe he can do a similar trade now.

It takes him a while, but he eventually gets someone to buy his cigarettes off him for a few bucks. It’s not much, but it’s enough to swing into a nearby dollar store for a fuzzy winter hat, a red scarf, and a pair of black winter gloves. Yancy doubts they’ll last very long, considering their price point, but they should be good for however long he plans to be out here.

_“How long is that?”_

_“Dunno yet.”_

After more walking, more pondering his situation, more thinking about Lio and cringing until he puts him out of his mind and then thinking about him again, noticing how he’s doing the same circular thinking he used to do before his confession and getting angry about his lack of progress in getting over it, he knows he has to make a decision. He has to decide when he’s going home.

He doesn’t want to go back now. Tonight feels too soon. A few days? A week? He wonders how pissed Dark will be if he stays gone that long. If he’s gonna be away longer than that he might as well not go back at all.

It’s an idle thought, but it resonates.

_“What if I never went back? I never really belonged there, anyway. It’s too weird, too different.”_

_“And living on the streets is better?”_

_“It is after the whole Lio fiasco.”_

_“How will you survive?”_

_“I’ll figure it out.”_

_“This is a bad idea.”_

_“I’ll make it work.”_

_“Come on, Yance, running away from home over a guy?? This is crazy!!”_

_“He’s not just a guy. He’s my best friend, at least, he was. I can’t be there and deal with him around me anymore.”_

_“Youse gonna regret this, man.”_

_“I’ll see.”_

If Yancy’s really going to do this, he’ll need new clothes.

Once the other egos decide they need to start looking for him (which could be soon, considering he’s been gone since last night and it’s now afternoon), he’ll need to stay out of sight. Even with his new winter accessories covering his tattoos and hair, he still has his striped pants to give him away. They’ll probably be looking out for the black sweater, too, and he can’t take it off without exposing his much more identifiable arm tattoo. It has no hood to hide behind, either. To stay hidden from the others, he’ll need to find something new to wear.

But he still has no money, meaning he’ll have to steal.

He battles with himself even as he looks for a suitable store. This is worse than duping people into buying him food; at least then the person is actually choosing to give Yancy something of theirs. On the other hand, Yancy’s spent more than one night hanging out with Yandere and Chrome and getting into fistfights with people. Surely that’s even worse than stealing, and he’s done it without batting an eye. But again, the people he fought _chose_ to punch first, Yancy didn’t just confront random people and start swinging.

But Yancy, for all his rehabilitation, is still a criminal inside. He still doesn’t want to go home, he still doesn’t want to be found. So he finds a store; small, packed, part of a chain. Even now he has principles, he isn’t about to steal from a mom-and-pop. He walks in before he can change his mind.

He recalls what other inmates told him about stealing. Most of it came from his first lover at Happy Trails, the blonde waif of a woman with the quickest hands Yancy had ever seen. He knows to be casual, to resist the urge to look around for cameras, to calmly and kindly refuse help from the sales associates as he looks around. He’s not planning on coming back here again; he only has to get away with this once. If they find him on cameras and blacklist him later it’s no skin off his back. He just has to avoid arousing suspicion here and now.

He finds a pair of jeans to replace his prison pants, and a gray, long-sleeved tee to give more warmth than his white t-shirt. He picks out a bulky red hoodie that nearly matches his scarf and even grabs a pair of sturdy white sneakers. Yancy takes them into a fitting room, pulls off all the tags, and puts everything on. He nearly startles at his own reflection; with these clothes, he could pass for half the other egos on their days off. He takes off his winter hat. His hair is still mostly in place thanks to his hair gel, and he nearly looks like Bim Trimmer sans glasses. He ruffles his hair up and becomes Silver Shepherd in street clothes. He smooths it down over his forehead and straightens up, and he almost looks like a Google. Curious now, he pulls the hoodie off, leaving him in the gray tee, and wonders who he looks like now.

But it suddenly reminds Yancy of the scuba suit he’s seen Lio in more than once, for those times he was searching the ocean or in underwater caves. The tee is nearly the same color though much looser; Lio’s suit was skintight and left almost nothing to the imagination. Yancy could never decide if he loved seeing him in it more than he hated having to play it cool around him when he wore it.

Yancy scowls at himself in the mirror and pulls the hoodie back on.

He leaves his old clothes balled up on the room’s bench and walks out of the store. No one stops him. No one chases after him. He gets away, stolen clothes on his back. He still feels bad, but he’s at least a lot warmer.

_“Where to now?”_

_“Anywhere but Ego Inc.”_

Yancy ventures onward to somewhere.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Run from me  
>  You ain't gonna find no love, baby  
> You should run from me  
> Just a little bit of company  
> Yeah, that's all you gonna get from me_  
> -Carlie Hanson, “Numb”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^If that didn't give it away, in this chapter we get to see what Lio thinks about all this mess ^^
> 
> Enjoy!

Lio hadn’t been worried at first.

He hadn’t expected Yancy to answer his call; he can’t blame him for not wanting to talk. He wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t seen him around the building; he’d been hard to spot for a week since…everything. But as the morning becomes afternoon, he realizes that no one else has seen or heard from Yancy, either, not since last night.

Part of Lio thinks Yancy must just be out clearing his head, but the other part of him knows better. Something’s wrong. Hell, something’s been wrong for days. He’s only been thinking about it nonstop.

Yancy’s confession had blindsided him. Lio hadn’t expected it, hadn’t noticed a thing. Yancy had hid it so well, and Lio’s heart aches to know it. How upset was he when Lio wasn’t around? How upset is he now, does he still cry the way he did after Lio rejected him? Lio had never wanted to hurt him like he did, but he’d been at a total loss. Yancy is his _friend,_ his best friend, his confidante, his favorite person in the world alongside Magnum – but he’s not in love with him. He never could be, he could never risk it.

How many partners has he lost? How many people fell in love with him? How many of them did he let himself love back? How many of them are in the ground now? How many of them are stiff statues on mountainsides or stuck in remote caves? How many of them got separated from Lio and were never found? How many times has Lio woken up in the night with an old partner’s face in his mind, with their name on his lips?

Too many. Far, far too many.

He cares too much about Yancy to put him in danger, to bring him to the forefront of whatever curse he’s got that makes him lose people. He cares too much about Yancy to fall in love with him.

But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have reacted better to Yancy’s confession. He didn’t go after Yancy when he ran off, didn’t even call out to him. He didn’t knock on his bedroom door after giving him a few hours to be alone. He didn’t find him in the hall the next morning to clear the air. He didn’t use Magnum’s arrival the day after that to talk to Yancy and figure things out. He let a week go by and avoided Yancy the whole time. But why? Anxiety? Fear? Guilt? Maybe all three? For all Lio’s thought about the situation since it started, he still can’t say just how he feels.

That is, until a meeting is called, one that all the egos are required to come to, regarding Yancy’s sudden disappearance.

There’s not enough room at the conference table to Lio to sit, so he stands nearby with Magnum, who looks just as worried as Lio, maybe even more so. He must know exactly how Yancy feels; he’s already tried to get Lio to talk to him. Lio wishes he’d listened to Magnum’s request, now. They aren’t the only ones worried; Bim is chewing his lip, MarkBop is leaning against Bing with big, nervous eyes, and Yandereplier is practically vibrating with anxiety. They’re all friends with Yancy, too. Lio wonders if any of them know the whole story. Well, he wonders if Bim and Bop know the whole story. He’s sure that Yandere does, considering the glares he’s been sending Lio’s way for the past week. Yandere is intimidating, and so is Lio’s own guilt, so he’s been avoiding Yandere since this whole thing started. Fortunately, Yandere isn’t paying attention to him at the moment; he’s more focused on Dark as he calls the meeting to order.

“As some of you have informed me,” Dark begins, “Yancy has not been seen since last night.”

This starts up a murmur among the egos who hadn’t been aware, curious and worried.

“Upon looking at the security cameras, Google was able to confirm that Yancy left the building after midnight and has not yet returned.”

It’s late afternoon now, almost evening.

“However, Yandere did attempt to call him, and Google was able to follow the signal’s path to Yancy’s phone.”

Lio blinks in surprise. He didn’t know Yandere called Yancy, too. He’d finally gotten up the courage to speak to Yancy about everything, even if through a screen, but the call had been ignored after a few rings. It sounds like Yandere didn’t have any luck either, if Dark’s word choice and Yandere’s expression are any indication.

“Google traced the signal to the park.”

“Specifically the lake,” Google puts in. _“In_ the lake.”

A flurry of murmuring starts up again, louder this time.

“It appears as though Yancy intentionally discarded his phone there,” Dark continues over the others, “We’ve been unable to figure out where he’s gone since.” He looks around the table to the oldest egos. “That means we’re going to be looking for him. The Googles will tap into security footage around the city and continue to search that way.”

“I’ll do more patrols,” Silver Shepherd says, “Maybe I’ll see him on one.”

“Wil and I have people we can talk to,” Bim adds.

“The Host will use his visions, and see if they turn up anything useful,” Host puts in.

Dark nods, satisfied.

“I expect any new information to be brought to my attention immediately,” he says, “I don’t need to remind you all that Yancy is a new ego, and is therefore vulnerable.”

“What happened to him, anyway?” Bop asks suddenly, quiet and afraid. “Did…did someone kidnap him?”

A few moments of quiet.

“No, I think…” Bim begins, “I think he ran away.” His voice spikes with nerves. “He’s been weird this whole past week, something must’ve happened! Whatever it was, it might’ve made him want to run away.”

Lio glances at Magnum, who glances right back. Neither says anything. They have no desire to air Yancy’s dirty laundry to the rest of the egos.

Yandere doesn’t say anything, either, though his expression darkens.

“Be that as it may,” Dark sighs, “What matters now is finding Yancy. The Googles found nothing at the lake to suggest a struggle, but kidnapping is not an impossibility. For now, we will carry out the usual search protocols until we find something conclusive. All are dismissed.”

Dark poofs away, and everyone else shuffles out to leave. Lio and Magnum stay, though, mulling everything over.

“He really ran off, did he?” Magnum murmurs, more a statement than a question.

“Looks like it,” Lio sighs, “I did call him this morning, but–”

“Hey!”

Lio looks away from Magnum to see Yandere suddenly in his face, eyes red with anger. Lio suppresses a yelp of surprise and backs away.

“Woah, what–”

“This is _your fault,”_ Yandere growls, “Yancy ran off because of _you.”_

“Hey, hold on!” Lio yells, pushing back the despair that wells up in his chest at the words. “I didn’t make him do anything, he made the choice to leave on his own!!”

“Ye ought to stay your tongue,” Magnum warns Yandere, but Yandere ignores him, continuing to come at Lio.

“You broke his heart!” Yandere shouts. He jabs a finger into Lio’s chest. “You hurt him bad and you never even tried to apologize!!”

“Apologize for what?” Lio asks helplessly, struggling to keep his cool. “Not being in love with him??”

“For avoiding him and acting like you don’t care about him!” Yandere yells. “He cried for hours and couldn’t get through a day without punching a hole in something and you just ignored him!!”

“He…” Lio can’t say anymore, now that he’s imagining Yancy doing those things.

“I thought you were his _friend,”_ Yandere snarls, “And so did he! Now he’s alone and he could get hurt or kidnapped or who knows what, and it’s all your fault!!”

“That’s enough from ye,” Magnum cuts in, stepping in front of Lio with a decisive _thunk._ “I don’t need me ship here to keelhaul ye, savvy?”

“Try it, Captain Crunch,” Yandere scoffs, “I dare you.”

Lio’s eyes widen. Magnum may be a gentle soul, but Lio’s seen him toss full-grown men over the side of his boat like sacks of flour. But Yandere, despite being around half Magnum’s height and one third of his weight, is formidable in his own right. Lio knows from Yancy how Yandere can cut men down like blades of grass with his katana. If Magnum and Yandere do fight, it won’t be pretty.

Fortunately, another voice rings out, sharp and authoritative.

“Hey!!”

Lio looks around Magnum to see Dr. Iplier striding into the room, likely attracted by the shouting. He looks angry, in the way a parent or a teacher might be. Magnum and Yandere see him too, and both startle.

“Simmer down, both of you!” Dr. Iplier scolds. “This is no time to fight and you both know it!”

Magnum steps away from Yandere and back beside Lio, a little embarrassed. Yandere stays where he is and redirects his glare from Lio to Dr. Iplier.

“Dad–!”

“You should be ashamed, blaming this on Lio!” Dr. Iplier yells, interrupting Yandere. “I better not hear you saying anything like that to him again, you understand me?”

“But–”

“Do you understand me?” Dr. Iplier asks, slowly and sternly. Lio almost shrinks back, nervous even though Dr. Iplier is defending him. Yandere’s glare softens into a pout, and his eyes start to darken back to brown.

_“Hai, oto-san,”_ he grumbles, turning to leave.

“And I expect you to apologize to Lio after you’ve cooled off,” Dr. Iplier calls after him.

Yandere lets out a wordless sound of equal parts assent and frustration as he storms off. Dr. Iplier sighs.

“Sorry about him,” Dr. Iplier tells Lio as he turns back to look at him. “I’m sure he’s worried about Yancy, but that’s no–” He stops when he sees Lio, shock coloring his expression. “Oh, Lio…”

“What?” Lio asks, a moment before he realizes his face is wet. He doesn’t know when he started crying. “Oh, no, I’m fine,” he insists hurriedly, wiping his eyes with both hands.

“Don’t cry, lad,” Magnum says softly, putting a huge arm around Lio’s shoulders, “That bilge rat doesn’t know what he’s on about.”

“Hey now,” Dr. Iplier says, brow furrowing a little, “That’s my kid you’re talking about.”

Lio struggles to contain and wipe his tears as Magnum tries to comfort him without offending Dr. Iplier. No matter how quickly he seems to dry his face, more tears fall down just as fast. He feels so silly, weeping in front of the others like this. He’s Illinois Jones, for god’s sake; he’s too cool to cry. But Yandere’s words are slingshotting around his brain like so many pebbles in a shaken jar, and they resonate more each time they connect. Yandere’s right. Yancy ran away because of Lio. Lio broke his heart and made no effort to fix it. Yancy couldn’t take it and decided he’d rather run away than deal with Lio’s silence.

It’s his fault. It’s his fault.

Eventually, Lio gets his tears back under control. Yandere comes to him that night and apologizes, awkward but surprisingly sincere. It doesn’t make a difference, though. It doesn’t make Yandere less right.

Lio cares about Yancy, he wants the best for him, he loves him like a friend. But he’s not _in_ love with him. He never could be.

If he did this much damage by rejecting him, he can only imagine how much worse he’d do if he hadn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;;;w;;;
> 
> Sadly, next week's chapter will be a bit late, on account of me being in another country on vacation. Hopefully I'll be able to post it on Monday or Tuesday. It's a longer chapter than usual, though, so hopefully that makes up for it :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wish I could un-kiss the room full of strangers  
>  So I could un-spite you, un-lose my temper  
> But some things you can’t undo  
> And one of them’s you_  
> -FLETCHER, “Undrunk”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the female OC comes in, and also where the one-night stand tag comes in. But this fic i till rated M, not E, so it's nothing too crazy. Poor Yancy is just trying to forget, you know? ;w;
> 
> Also, I didn't intend on making the female OC so developed and sympathetic, but character creation/development seems to be my weakness :p I hope you guys like her!
> 
> Enjoy!

After a long day of aimlessly wandering through LA and fighting with himself on whether or not he should go home, Yancy ends up in a cheap bar.

The place is decently busy, not very clean, and most of the clientele seem rough around the edges. People are shouting over each other to be heard, punctuated by the _thunk_ of glasses being slammed down. There’s a minor catfight going on in the corner of the room, with two women pulling each other’s hair and trying to scratch out each other’s eyes. It’s not all bad, though. There’s groups of friends genuinely having a good time, and couples standing together around the room. There’s even a pair of women, talking and obviously flirting with each other, and no one else even seems to notice. Yancy can’t help but feel a little safer.

He’s not sure what his goal here is. It’s not like he has any money, he doesn’t even have an ID (he owns a fake one, but it’s back in his room at Ego Inc.). He sits at the booth anyway; maybe if he drinks enough water he won’t get hungry until morning. The bartender gives him a funny look when he asks for only water, but he gives him a glass anyway. Yancy wonders how he comes across to others: His clothes are brand new and clean, but he knows his expression is tired, unhappy, pale cheeks and baggy eyes.

He must look pretty pathetic, because a woman sidles up next to him, sitting in the stool to his right.

“Long day?” she asks with a sympathetic grin. Yancy can’t help but snort.

“You have no idea.” He chuckles quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Long week, more like.”

“Rough. I hope you don’t mind company.”

“Nah, I could use some. You are…?”

“Danielle.” She smiles, genuine and bright. “You can call me Dani if you want.”

“Cool, I’m…”

It occurs to Yancy that most of the egos with strange names have some sort of alias they use to avoid suspicion. It also occurs to Yancy that Dark has a rule about the egos getting too close to humans. But it _also_ occurs to Yancy that he’s not in Ego Inc. right now, and he’s not even sure if he’s going back, and in that case, why should he care about those rules, anyway?

“Yancy,” he finally says. “Yan or Yance is good too, though.”

“Yancy.” Danielle says it slowly, not mocking, but curious. “I’ve never heard that name before. Where are you from?”

“Uh, Ohio.”

“Ah.”

The conversation seems pretty dead in the water, but then Yancy realizes something.

“Hey, weren’t youse talkin’ to that other gal over there earlier?”

It’d be hard to mistake her; Danielle is Yancy’s height, with long, thick black hair tied back in a poofy ponytail. She’s wearing a white, knot front blouse with long, draping sleeves under an unzipped puffy vest, and flared jeans over spiky black boots. This close, Yancy can see how her nose is slightly bent, and how her eyes are strikingly blue. Her features are strong, solid-edged, and very attractive, at least to Yancy,

“I was, but we didn’t come in together,” Danielle explains. “She’s cute, I guess, but we didn’t really click.” She sees the look on Yancy’s face, and rolls her eyes. “I know that look. You’re wondering why I’m here with you when I was just with a girl, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Yancy admits. He wants to explain himself, but he lets Danielle keep talking first.

“Put simply, I swing both ways,” she says, “I hope it’s not a problem that I like girls.” She sounds less worried about upsetting Yancy and more about getting bothered by him.

“No, no way, I mean, me too!” Yancy exclaims, but then realizes how that sounded when Danielle’s expression changes to unimpressed. “No, aw hell, I mean…” He rubs the back of his neck again. “I mean…I like both, too. Was just surprised to find someone else here who does, s’all.”

“Oh!” Danielle says, first shocked, then she starts laughing. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry! I’m so used to people giving me a hard time–”

“No, I get it, I must’ve sounded like a real tool–”

“I don’t know how many straight guys have said what you did–”

The two are laughing, apologizing and explaining to each other through it all. In the process, they end up leaning towards each other, closer. Danielle really is beautiful.

“This calls for a drink,” Danielle giggles, “On me.” She notices Yancy’s water. “Oh, wait, are you driving?”

“No, nothin’ like that,” Yancy says, embarrassed. “I, uh, left my wallet at home.” It’s not a lie.

“Rough! Well, they never check IDs here, anyway, so I’ll get us something.”

The beer Danielle orders them isn’t bad; it’s better than Shithole Hank’s hooch wine, that’s for sure. She even takes pity on his growling stomach and orders fries for them to share. They talk for a while, and Yancy eventually ends up telling her what he’s doing here.

“Confessed to a friend,” he says with a shrug, trying to play off the still-raw hurt. “Didn’t work out. Don’t help that we’re roomies, too, so I just…had to get away for a bit, yanno?”

“Yikes,” Danielle murmurs, “That sounds terrible. I’ve fallen for friends before. It’s always more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Youse tellin’ me.”

“I got out of a relationship a few weeks ago.” Danielle leans closer, like she’s trying not to be too obvious. “It was pretty mutual, though. I’m ready for something new.”

That much was already apparent. The more Yancy and Danielle talk, the more overt Danielle gets. She gets so close they nearly bump heads, and even puts a hand on Yancy’s thigh once or twice, removing it the second after he notices but before he can say anything. Not that Yancy would. Danielle clearly wants a one-night stand, and maybe it’d be good for Yancy, too. Maybe this is what he needs to scrub Lio out of his brain and actually enjoy himself. Maybe if he finds out how Danielle tastes he’ll stop thinking about how Lio might taste. Maybe if he sleeps with her he’ll stop dreaming about sleeping with Lio. Not to mention he’ll have somewhere warm and comfortable to stay for the night if he goes home with her. It feels dishonest, but realistically, Danielle already knows his baggage. Yancy’s told her how he’s getting away from his roommate and ill-fated crush, she has to be aware of what he’s looking for…right? And Danielle really is a beautiful woman; anyone would be lucky to be with her. She’s fun, too; witty and kind and tough. She’s exactly the type of person he’d fall head over heels for if he wasn’t already tripping over Lio.

They end up leaving the bar a little bit tipsy, enough to give them both red cheeks and constant giggles. Danielle leads the way to her apartment, and Yancy is almost too drunk to feel guilty about imposing. When they walk in, though, he’s distracted from his thoughts by what he sees.

“Ohhhh, _hello!”_ he coos at the beautiful brindle-coated pit bull that rushes into the room to greet them.

“That’s Bruce,” Danielle explains with a grin, gently fending the dog off as she takes off her puffy vest. “But I call him “Brucie” and “BruBru” so often I don’t think he knows his real name anymore.”

“He’s a real handsome dog,” Yancy says appreciatively, giving Bruce a hand to sniff after he’s taken his gloves off. “I ain’t allowed to have pets where I’m at.” He laughs as Bruce starts vigorously licking his hand.

“Yeah, I really lucked out here,” Danielle says, “So many buildings have a stick up their ass about bully breeds. But this place is good, I swear the landlord like Bruce more than me.”

“Well, he _is_ a charmer,” replies Yancy, now sitting on the floor and letting Bruce bowl him over with affection. Danielle laughs at the sight.

“Alright, alright, come on,” she giggles, “You passed the Bruce test with flying colors, let’s go to my room.”

Yancy’s chest flutters (With nerves? Excitement? Something else?) as he gets off the floor and gives Danielle a quizzical look.

“Sure, but…what’s the Bruce test?” he asks.

“Well, Brucie’s a sweet dog, but he’s got a sixth sense for terrible partners,” Danielle explains. “He can be downright mean if he senses something off about someone. I’ve dodged a few red flags thanks to him, but it seems like you aren’t one of them.”

_“Oh great, it’s not enough that you’re using Danielle to sleep somewhere warm tonight. You’ve duped her sweet dog into trusting you, too.”_

Yancy tries to ignore his thoughts as he follows Danielle to her room. Bruce follows too, and Danielle has to muscle him out of the doorway to close the bedroom door. It’s clear she’s done this many, many times.

“You’re still in, right?” Danielle asks, unknotting the front of her blouse.

“Yeah,” Yancy says, though he makes no move to take his own clothes off yet.

It’s only partly from his lingering thoughts of dishonesty. It doesn’t matter how many times he sees someone disrobe, it’s still attractive to him. He can certainly appreciate the tightness of Danielle’s stomach, visible as she lifts her shirt over her head. He finds himself sitting on the end of her bed to watch the display. Danielle’s bra is simple, nearly the same color as her skin, but what really attracts Yancy’s attention is the tattoo on her elbow, now visible without the sleeve of her blouse over it.

It’s a spiderweb, branching from the point of her elbow out, as though a spider made a home there. It doesn’t go very far up or down her arm, but it’s there, unmistakable. It could just be a spiderweb tattoo and nothing more, but Yancy’s seen tattoos like that before. Plenty of inmates at Happy Trails had them, too. In prison, they signal that someone’s been locked up for a while, that they’ve been trapped like a bug in a web, so idle with prison life that they’ve grown cobwebs. Yancy almost got one himself but decided he didn’t want anymore ink on top of what he already has.

“Nice tattoo,” he ventures. Danielle, who was shimmying out of her jeans, pauses.

“Thanks,” she says. Something in Yancy’s voice must have given him away, because she stares at him, considering. “You…know what it means?”

“Yeah,” Yancy answers, “I, uh…I almost got one, too, back when I was in the big house.”

Danielle relaxes, a bit like how she did when she realized that Yancy is bi, too.

“No kidding?” she asks, laughing a little. “I really wasn’t there that long, not compared to others, anyway. It was eight years; would’ve been less, but I kept causing havoc in jail that added time.” She must see the curiosity on Yancy’s face, because her smile turns less playful, her eyes get faraway. “Drug possession; heroin, to be specific. Just a few too many grams to get a light sentence. I couldn’t stay away from it, even in jail. Eventually I forced myself to drop it so I could have a life again.” She resumes taking her pants off. “What about you?”

Yancy freezes then. He looks away.

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me!” Danielle backtracks hurriedly, kicking her pants off from around her ankles. “I forget that not everyone’s as candid about that kinda thing as I am, sorry I asked.”

“S’alright,” Yancy mumbles.

_“Would she still want you here if she knew what you’d done?”_

Yancy looks back to see Danielle in her underwear, lacey and dark blue. His breath stutters, and his thoughts suddenly short-circuit. Danielle has _really_ nice legs.

“Thanks,” Danielle giggles.

“Ah, shoot, I said that out loud, huh?” Yancy asks, sheepish, as Danielle approaches him.

“You did,” she affirms. She looks him up and down. “Are you gonna maybe…” She gestures to his still-clothed body. “Do something about all that?”

“Hey, we don’t gotta rush, doll,” Yancy answers, leaning back. “’Sides, I’m cozy. Maybe if I got too hot, I might take somethin’ off.”

His accessories and hoodie are sitting back by the door on Danielle’s coatrack, and his sneakers are beside it. But his shirt and jeans are still on, just tight enough to bolster the imagination without revealing very much. Danielle grins at his words.

“Alright, we can play that game,” she says, leaning down and sitting on Yancy’s lap.

Even with the worries of deceiving Danielle still in Yancy’s mind, it’s not hard to push them to the backburner once Danielle’s lips meet his. She doesn’t taste like anything he can name, but she’s an excellent kisser, slow, deep. Her nails find the nape of Yancy’s neck, sending shivers down his spine as she plays with the tufts of hair he missed when he gelled it this morning.

_“No, yesterday morning. You haven’t gelled it since then, remember? You haven’t been at Ego Inc. to do it.”_

Yancy tries to chase the thought away by reciprocating Danielle’s touches, gripping her waist with one hand and letting the other wander over her thigh. Danielle hums appreciatively, the sound vibrating through Yancy as their lips stay connected. He eventually pulls away to mouth at her neck, sucking marks into the flesh. His grip on her hip changes to let his fingers dip below the band of her underwear, dangerously close.

“Slow down, tiger,” Danielle chuckles, breathy and light, “I wanna play, too.”

Yancy finally pulls away from her to take his shirt off, doing it maybe a little more slowly than he needs to, giving Danielle a nice view. The moment Yancy’s shirt hits the floor, Danielle’s hands are all over him. Yancy can’t get enough of her, either. She even _smells_ good, something vaguely spicy on the edge of Yancy’s senses. Her skin is soft but tough, it takes effort to mark her up. On top of everything else, she’s a great kisser, undoing Yancy from his jaws to his chest. Did he notice her good kissing already? Probably. It’s hard to think like this. It’s been a while since he got to sleep with someone. At some point he gets her bra off, giving him even more skin to play with. Danielle arches into it, happy to let him.

Eventually, Danielle’s hands finally travel down to Yancy’s straining jeans, palming him, letting out an appreciative hum. Yancy grins against her skin.

“Do you want me yet?” she asks, low and sultry.

The words fling Yancy somewhere else completely, to a familiar memory.

_“Are you in love with me yet?”_

Yancy pushes Danielle off and stands, surprising her.

“What the–” she starts, “Did I do something? I thought–”

“Sorry,” Yancy mutters, hardly able to breathe, “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

He grabs his shirt off the floor and hurriedly tugs it over his head, but all he can see is Lio. Lio’s easy grin, Lio’s handsome eyes, Lio’s sharp jawline and rough stubble that Yancy wishes he could touch–

“Wait, come on, what’s this about?” Danielle asks, voice getting sharper, frustrated.

“It ain’t you, Dani, I swear, I just–” Yancy runs a hand down his face, upset. “I ain’t over it. I ain’t over him. I thought I wanted to be with you, I thought it’d take my mind off, but I just…I just want him so bad. I can’t do this.”

A tense silence settles over the room. Danielle sighs and savagely grabs her bra off the floor.

“I knew it,” she mutters as she puts her bra back on, “I knew you weren’t gonna go through with this, I knew you weren’t over that guy and trying to use me for comfort, but I brought you home anyway.” She shakes her head. “Look, you’re not a bad guy, Yancy, but you better leave until you can be honest with yourself, much less others.”

The words strike right through Yancy’s heart, and he gasps.

“Wait, hold on, are you–” His voice almost cracks. “Are youse kickin’ me out?”

“I invited you here for a reason, and it wasn’t for a friendly sleepover,” Danielle answers, deadpan. “Just go home and deal with your shit, don’t make me your cure-all.”

“Aw, come on, doll, I just – I gotta – C’mon, don’t put me out–”

“Go _home,_ Yancy.”

“I can’t!”

“You can, and you will, because you’re not staying here.” She sighs again, less frustrated, more sad. “I know from experience that enabling helps no one. So I won’t enable you, not tonight.”

“I…” Yancy hangs his head. “Okay.”

“Let yourself out, I’ll relock the door after.” She turns away from him to pull her shirt back on. “Come back to that bar when you’ve sorted yourself out, maybe we can see each other again.”

_“When the hell is THAT gonna be?”_

_“Who knows?”_

Yancy leaves Danielle’s room in a daze, passing Bruce, who looks up at him from the bone he’s been chewing.

“You shoulda warned her, buddy,” Yancy grumbles as he puts his hoodie on, followed by his hat, scarf, and gloves. When he bends to get his shoes on, Bruce trots over and tries to lick him, but Yancy gently pushes him back until the bog goes back to his bone, oblivious to Yancy’s mood.

Yancy walks out of Danielle’s apartment, not looking back once he closes the door and ventures into the cold night. He turns her words over and over in his mind, thinking, wondering.

He finds and sleeps on a bus stop bench for the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Once upon a time, we fell apart  
>  You’re holding in your hands  
> The two halves of my heart_  
> -Coldplay feat. Rihanna, “Princess of China”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We saw how Yancy handled his first on the run, wonder how Lio managed? :3c
> 
> I meant to post last Saturday but I had a family thing, sorry ;w; I'll do my best to update weekly from now on.
> 
> Anyhow, enjoy! :D

Lio can’t sleep.

He’s trying to: He’s put on the shorts he wears to bed and turned the light off in his room, he lies in bed for hours and tries to quiet his racing thoughts. But it’s no good, because he can’t turn off the thoughts about Yancy. He can’t stop wondering if he’s doing okay, if he’s been able to take care of himself and stay out of trouble, if he’s sleeping somewhere safe right now. It’s enough that Yancy isn’t here; it’s worse to not know what’s happening to him. What if he’s starving, hurt, or in danger? Lio tries to placate himself, remind himself that Yancy is no helpless flower and is definitely capable of handling himself. But still, he worries.

With a sigh, he finally gets out of bed and leaves his room. His feet carry him to the common room on his floor, but he doesn’t have much say in it. He’s still exhausted even if he can’t sleep, so his body makes the decision for him.

When he walks into the room, Magnum is already there, sitting listlessly on the couch.

“You can’t sleep, either?” Lio asks. Magnum jumps, startled, before turning to him.

“Ye gave me a fright, lad,” he says, “Yer as quiet as a sunken ship.”

“Sorry.” Lio tries for an apologetic grin as he sits on the other end of the couch, reclining and staring at the ceiling.

“No, though, to answer ye question,” Magnum admits. “Yancy’s one tough fellow, yet I can’t help but worry about him.”

“Me either. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Perhaps he’ll come to his senses and return soon?”

“I doubt it.” Lio sighs. “You know him, he’s so damn stubborn. If he’s decided he wants to leave, then he–”

Lio’s breath catches, stopping him from continuing out loud, but the sentence completes in his mind:

_“…then he won’t come back.”_

What if Yancy never returns? What if he gets killed out there or if he just decides to skip town and make a new home somewhere else? What if Lio never sees him again?

Oh hell, he’s crying again.

“You think they’ll find him?” he asks Magnum, voice mostly even.

“Of course,” Magnum says softly, “They know this confounding city better than the two o’ us.” He pauses. “Certainly better than I.”

Lio lets out a bitter chuckle. Magnum can make his way through the stormiest sea and follow nothing but the stars and an outdated map to find treasure. Lio can effortlessly explore the deepest caves, climb the highest mountains, and swim in the darkest trenches to find rare artifacts. Yet neither of them, for all their skill, have a clue how to find their best friend in a single city. Lio, for his part, doesn’t even know where to begin. He knows it’s not his job; the other, older egos are the one in charge of finding Yancy. But Lio isn’t used to feeling useless. He isn’t used to feeling helpless.

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened,” Lio says, voice getting shakier. “I can’t stop wishing that I’d handled it differently, that I’d said something different to him or tried to talk to him, or–”

“It ain’t yer fault, lad,” Magnum tells him.

“Isn’t it, though?” Lio asks, sitting up to look at Magnum. “My reaction hurt him. I knew that, and I never tried to talk to him about it and figure it out. So he left because he couldn’t take it.”

“Argh, is this about what Yandere said to ye earlier? Pay no mind to that scallywag, Lio.”

“How can I?” Lio almost yells, “He’s right! You may not want to admit it but you know he’s right! Yancy wouldn’t have been so broken up if I’d just taken your advice and _talked_ to him!”

Magnum purses his lips in thought – and concern, watching tears drip down Lio’s face. Lio’s surprised at himself; he rarely cries, yet he’s crying now for the second time in twenty-four hours. It’s not normal for him, and Magnum knows that, too.

“…Are ye lookin’ for me to say that I told ye so, lad?” Magnum asks. “I don’t think I can.”

Lio slouches with a huff, staring at his lap.

“I know.” He makes a sound partway between a scoff and wet chuckle. “I f-figured you’d be more upset at me about this.”

“Well, it ain’t an ocean breeze for me either,” Magnum admits, “But I could never blame ye. Ye didn’t want this, either.” He reaches an arm out, beckoning Lio closer.

Normally Lio would put up a token protest before letting Magnum smother him, but tonight, he doesn’t have the heart for it. He crawls over the couch to Magnum, letting him hug him tight. There’s something about getting a hug from Magnum that makes all of Lio’s cool melt down the drain, even on normal, happy days. Tonight, Magnum’s earnest, affectionate hold makes him start crying even more. Somewhere at the back of his mind he’s embarrassed, but he can’t truly focus on anything but the feelings pouring of him now.

“I _hate_ this,” Lio sobs into Magnum’s chest, “It’s only been a day and I miss him so bad. I just want him to come _home.”_

“Ye and me both, lad,” Magnum murmurs, rubbing Lio’s back. His voice is a little wet, too. “Yancy may want to be left alone right now, but he ain’t going to stay away forever. I can feel it in me bones.”

Maybe Magnum’s right. After all, this is Yancy they’re talking about; the one who was perfectly content to stay imprisoned for his whole life, who got agoraphobic after a month of travel, who would happily live forever inside Ego Inc.’s walls and not a step outside. There’s no way he’ll be able to take living out in the city without a place to stay, without a friend to talk to. Hell, he might even come back tomorrow.

But try as he might, Lio still fears. He still fears Yancy’ stubborn broken heart overriding his comfort and keeping him away. He still fears Yancy hitching a ride out of Los Angeles, out of California completely, somewhere the others will never find him. He still fears Yancy getting in trouble with the law and finding himself in a jail or prison much less forgiving than Happy Trails.

If only Lio had been able to return Yancy’s feelings, then this could’ve been resolved without any heartache. But Lio still, for as much as he misses Yancy, can’t be in love with him. Things are awful now, but Lio would rather Yancy be out wandering the city than be lying in a body bag like every other lover he’s ever had. He can’t go back on that, but he can’t stand Yancy being gone, either. He can’t stand being the cause of all this. He can’t stand the fact that there was no right choice, no way to mitigate all the damage and keep Yancy’s heart intact.

In the end, all Lio can do is cry until he gets tired enough to go back to bed, thanking and saying goodnight to Magnum before returning to his room and finally falling asleep. He dreams of Yancy coming back, walking through the front doors of Ego Inc. like he never left. Lio dreams of hugging Yancy in greeting and not letting go, keeping him there, safe in Ego Inc., safe at home, safe in Lio’s arms, until he hugs Lio back and their hearts are beating together in time –

Lio wakes up the next morning and his arms still feel warm. His heart hammers against his chest, aching for the memory of Yancy’s answering heartbeat.

_“Fuck,”_ Lio gasps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh ;3c


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You can't deny, you feel the pain_  
>  Distractions won't take it away  
> -Lisa Cimorelli, “Unloved”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The past few chapters took place mostly over a single day, but Yancy's in this for the long haul, unfortunately ;w;
> 
> Enjoy!

Some days pass.

It’s hard to keep track without a phone to tell time with, and without a consistent schedule to occupy Yancy’s time. His night sleeping on the bus stop bench after leaving Danielle’s place is interrupted early, when a cop wakes him and tells him to move along. Yancy wanders, a little amazed that even so late at night (or early in the morning?), there’s still a few people walking other than himself, still a few cars driving around. Still, it’s as close to deserted as LA could ever get, and it’s eerie. It’s lonely. But Yancy doesn’t go home.

He mostly goes to parks. Sometimes skateparks, where he watches the more-skilled skaters go up and down the ramps. Usually common nature parks or dog parks, where he can people watch and pet a dog or two. He sleeps wherever he can find a place to lay down, and he’s woken by police and told to beat it more than once. Bumming food from people fails one too many times, and Yancy gets fed up and goes back to stealing. He snags food from grocery and convenience stores, and even dines and dashes a few times at different restaurants. He feels bad about all of it, but what else can he do?

_“You could go home.”_

_“I can’t! It’s been too long, and besides, I still can’t talk to Lio. I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him again. So I can’t see him, not now.”_

_“The others are looking for you, though. They must be worried about you.”_

That much is true. It’s not just that Yancy thinks that; he’s nearly been caught a few times by the other egos. He spies Bingiplier and MarkBop at a skatepark, and ducks out before they notice him. He hears a crowd pointing out Silver Shepherd flying overhead, and barely manages to avoid being seen. He goes into a grocery store he robbed once before and sees a Google in street clothes (he can’t tell which one without the classic t-shirt) scanning the place, and somehow escapes unnoticed. It’s probably a matter of time until one of them catches him and carts him back to Ego Inc., but Yancy isn’t about to make it easier for them. Part of him knows he’s being stupid and stubborn, and part of him thinks he’s enacting his own punishment; his own karmic justice for being dumb enough to fall in love with Lio, dumb enough to still love him, to think about him endlessly when there’s nothing else to think about.

Which, as it turns out, is more often than not. He didn’t expect running away from home to be so _boring._

He’d do more than just go to parks, but nothing around here is free. Sneaking into a movie feels too risky, clubs won’t let him in without ID, and most of the touristy attractions around have tickets and entry fees. He didn’t have any cash to begin with, but he hadn’t needed it at home. Ego Inc. has plenty to do, and none of it costs a thing. Even the arcade next to Silver’s room is free; all it takes to get coins is pressing a button on a machine. Out here in the city, though, it feels like people are nickel-and-dimed just for existing.

He keeps wanting to go back to that dive bar and try to find Danielle again, just to have someone to talk to. But he knows she’ll ask him if he’s gotten everything sorted out, or at least tried, and he won’t be able to lie to her. He doesn’t want to make her even more mad at him, doesn’t want to feel even worse about his own dishonesty.

So Yancy is left sitting on a park bench, sometime in the afternoon, eating a sandwich he stole from a convenience store, bored and tired and sad. He would’ve hoped he could forget about Lio by now, but Lio’s just too deeply entrenched in Yancy’s mind. Lio’s so deeply entrenched there, in fact, that Yancy doesn’t notice another presence near him until he sees a tiny paw reaching for his sandwich.

“What the–” Yancy instinctively pulls his sandwich away, holding it away from the paw, and looks to see who it belongs to.

It’s a squirrel, standing on his hind legs beside Yancy, nose twitching and eyes following the sandwich.

“Geez, youse got no fear, huh?” Yancy asks. The squirrel chitters in reply.

Yancy sighs, then brings his sandwich back to his lap. The squirrel watches intently as Yancy tears off a small piece of bread and holds it out. The squirrel takes it, sitting on its haunches to hold the bread and chew. Yancy watches it eat, unable to help being a little endeared. The squirrel’s not as cute as Bruce (he feels a twinge in his chest remembering that night), but it’s fun to watch the little thing eat. When it’s done, it jumps off the bench but doesn’t run away. Instead, it bounds away a couple feet before stopping and turning to look expectantly at Yancy.

“What, you want me to follow you?” Yancy asks, laughing a little. “To where?”

The squirrel chatters again, returning to Yancy to tug the cuff of his jeans with its teeth in an attempt to urge him along. A bolt of realization hits Yancy all at once.

“Youse one of King’s squirrels, ain’t you?” he asks, laughter fading.

The squirrel squeaks, seemingly happy, before bounding away again and stopping like he did before, waiting for Yancy to follow. But Yancy just sighs and hangs his head, slouching further into his chair.

“Nah, I ain’t going back home. I’m staying out here.”

If squirrels could pout, this one would be doing just that. It runs back to Yancy and tugs at his pant leg again, and when Yancy doesn’t budge, it dashes up his leg and sits on his lap, squeaking indignantly.

“Don’t you yell at me! Youse got no idea why I left!” Yancy yells. A few people walking by turn their heads to give him looks, so Yancy lowers his voice. “I ain’t goin’ back right now. Maybe I will, but not yet. And youse can’t make me, little fella.”

The squirrel stares at him, clearly annoyed and angry. Yancy wonders what King told it, what he told all his squirrels. Yancy doubts King knows why he ran. There’s no way Magnum or Yandere would spill his secret, and Lio…Lio wouldn’t either. Even after everything, Yancy can’t rightly call him a bad person. Maybe if he could it’d be easier to get over him.

“Quit givin’ me that look,” Yancy grumbles at the squirrel in his lap. “You ain’t got a clue about what I’m dealing with.”

The squirrel bites Yancy’s hoodie, grabbing the wrist, trying to make him get up. Yancy just watches the little creature tug and tug and tug, until a tiny strip of material rips away and the squirrel is sent tumbling over Yancy’s lap and onto the ground by his feet. Yancy can’t help it; he laughs, not minding the little hole in his hoodie.

_“When was the last time I laughed like that?”_

_“Since you talked to Dani, probably.”_

The thought sours him almost immediately, and he quiets as he watches the squirrel get up, shaking itself off with a squeak. The torn bit of Yancy’s hoodie hangs out of its mouth. It looks at Yancy again, waiting. Yancy only gets more and more annoyed the longer he looks at it. Is this what it’s come to, now? Living on stolen food? Sitting on park benches all day long? Alternating between boredom and crushing heartache? Talking to a fucking _squirrel??_

“I ain’t goin’ back,” Yancy repeats, suddenly miserable. “Just go home and leave me alone.”

The squirrel stays for another moment, staring at Yancy with big black eyes. Then it finally runs off, darting away through the park, presumably back to Ego Inc.

Yancy, for his part, gets up and walks off in the opposite direction, aiming to get as far away as possible before the squirrel leads the other egos here. But his pace is slow, his heart is heavy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wrote some words and then I stared at my feet  
>  Became a coward when I needed to speak  
> I guess love took on a different kind of meaning for me  
> So when I go, just know it kills me to leave_  
> -Dermot Kennedy, “Outnumbered”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that Yancy's been gone for a while, Ego Inc. is doing...less than great :')
> 
> A certain adventurer is doing...even less great :''')
> 
> Enjoy!

The days pass, and Yancy doesn’t turn up. Every hint the egos get on a security camera, every potential sighting, all of it turns up empty, again and again. They’re sure they’re getting close, sure they’re moments from catching him, but Yancy evades them every time. One of King’s squirrels even sees him (at least, according to King), but he isn’t in the park that the squirrel leads the others to. Dark is just about at his wit’s end, and so are the other egos, so are Yancy’s friends.

So is Lio.

But Lio, through it all, is still trying to keep his rationality. He’s still trying to hold onto his sanity even though he feels like it’s slipping. Ever since that dream he had after Yancy’s first day gone, he’s had a mantra to repeat:

_“I can’t be in love with Yancy.”_

It’s only realistic. Lio can’t love Yancy because Yancy is his friend. He can’t love Yancy because he doesn’t want to lose him like he lost every other partner. He can’t love Yancy because he already rejected him, and he can’t just take it back after all Yancy’s gone through because of it. Lio holds onto these truths, hammers them into his mind whenever he remembers how it felt to hold Yancy in that dream.

_“He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t need me.”_

It hurts Lio to think about Yancy’s hurt. It hurts him to know how he hurt his best friend, hurt him enough to send him running away. To send Yancy of all people running away from home. Lio can’t imagine how he must feel, if fleeing his home and his friends is preferable to seeing Lio again.

So he can’t love Yancy, he can’t.

But that’s the wrong word to use, isn’t it?

Maybe Lio always knew, deep down, how he felt. Maybe he knew when Yancy first confessed; it’s hard to tell. But he certainly knows now. There’s a reason he’s telling himself that he _can’t,_ not that he _doesn’t._

Because there’s no question about it: He _does_ love Yancy.

But he _can’t._

Not now.

Not after he’s ruined everything.

The realization doesn’t hit him all at once, and that’s probably a good thing, because he’s so frayed at the edges already from worrying about Yancy. It comes in pieces, every time he tells himself he _can’t, can’t, can’t._ His heart beats back that he _does, does, does,_ day in and day out. It feels so anticlimactic, because what can Lio do about it now? How can he address these feelings now? He doesn’t speak of them to Magnum, because Magnum would give him comfort and sympathy that he doesn’t think he deserves. What does Lio deserve for lying to himself and in turn lying to Yancy, and breaking his heart? He might speak of them to Yandere to get the punishment he deserves, but he still (barely) has his sanity, and no sane person would give Yandere a reason to stab them.

Said ego is still giving Lio dirty looks whenever he passes him in the hall, but that happens less and less often every day. Lio, as little as he sees Yandere, can see how Yancy’s disappearance is weighing on him: He always looks sad, angry, worried, like he’s about to cry or just finished crying. Lio’s seen him come home late at night or early in the morning, and while he could just be a grieving insomniac like Lio, Lio thinks he might be out looking for Yancy.

Not that it helps. Yancy stays gone. Lio’s heart keeps hurting.

One day, Lio finds himself walking to Dark’s office on Bim’s behalf. Bim needs some funding approval for an upcoming show, but the climate of Ego Inc. these past days has left him too nervous to approach Dark himself. Lio doesn’t blame him, but he isn’t happy to be meeting with Dark, either. The only reason he doesn’t refuse is because he knows that Bim’s taken Yancy’s disappearance hard, too: The pair became fast friends to no one’s surprise, and maybe Bim’s similarity to Yancy is why Lio befriended him, too. Regardless, Lio eventually makes it to Dark’s door, and he’s about to knock when he realizes people are talking inside. One is Dark, of course, deep and resonant even behind a door, but the other is higher, wavering, sad. It takes Lio a moment to recognize Yandere.

“What if we never find him?” Yandere sniffles.

“We will, love,” Dark insists, “Either we’ll find him or he will return of his own free will. He’s an ego as much as you are, and he’ll be pulled back to the building before long, just as you were.”

Lio thinks he knows what Dark means; Yancy mentioned offhand once that it took Yandere a while to find Ego Inc. when he was first made. There’s a pause, and Lio wonders what Yandere’s thinking.

“Yami,” Yandere finally says, halting and uncertain, “What are you going to do when he’s found, then?”

“He’ll need to be punished, Yandere,” Dark replies without hesitation. “He can’t run off and face no consequences. He may be new, but he knows the rules here.”

Lio feels panic spike through his chest. Punishment? What kind of punishment? Hasn’t Yancy gone through enough? Dark may not know about his romantic anguish, but he definitely knows that Yancy is miserable out there. Every sighting the egos have gotten of him so far has confirmed it. How could Dark be thinking of increasing Yancy’s suffering?

“Yamiiiii,” Yandere whines, as though Dark is threatening to take away Yandere’s cell phone instead of hurt his friend, “Do you really have to? He’s already so unhappy, won’t he want to run away again if he gets punished?”

“He won’t be able to run again,” Dark says, “He’ll be in the void.”

“What!? How long, Yami??”

“It depends on how long it takes for him to return.” Dark’s voice is impassive. “He’ll spend one day in the void for every day he remains missing.”

Lio almost gasps, but bites his tongue to keep the sound in. Lio’s heard horror stories about Dark’s void from the other egos, heard about that awful blackness, that terrible vacuum of space where it’s just a little too cold and a little too quiet. Even a day there alone is enough to drive a person mad, and Yancy’s already been gone for many.

But it’s not just that the void itself is terrifying. It’s how lonely it is, how dark and quiet, how it leaves a person with their own thoughts, with delusions that the void invites. How similar it is to solitary confinement, the one part of Happy Trails that Yancy hated, that he feared. Even now he can’t talk about it without shaking, even now he sometimes has nightmares about it.

To be thrown back into it after so many days already alone and lost would break him.

“That’s too much, Yami!” Yandere cries. “And you know how much Yan-kun hated solitary! It’d really hurt him to be trapped in your void!”

“He should have thought about that before he left,” Dark says, unsympathetic. “The rules of the house were explained thoroughly to him when he first arrived here, and he should have known better. Running off and living among humans puts us all at risk.”

“I know, but there has to be another way!” Yandere insists. “There has to be something else you could do, something that won’t hurt him so bad!”

Lio finds himself nodding, even though the others can’t see him. He doubts Dark could be convinced not to punish Yancy at all, but there has to be something, anything but the void to punish Yancy with. A surge of protective fear rushes through Lio as he thinks of Yancy in Dark’s void, scared and alone. He won’t let that happen. He doesn’t care what he has to do, he doesn’t even care if he has to take Yancy’s place, he’s not letting Yancy relive his deepest trauma.

_“Fuck, I really am in love with him.”_

Lio can’t deny it anymore, his poor job of denying it in the first place notwithstanding.

“The rules exist for a reason, Yandere,” Dark chides Yandere, “And they cannot be broken or bent for anyone.”

“You can’t put Yancy in your void!” Yandere yells, now angry. “If you do, I won’t speak to until you let him out! In fact, I think I’ll start right now.”

“Yandere, be reasonable.”

Silence.

“Yandere.”

More silence. Lio waits for Dark to get angry.

“Love, this is ridiculous.”

Lio wonders what kind of expression Yandere is making.

“Yandere, I have to uphold the rules of this building. I cannot have Yancy’s cohorts following his poor example.”

Is…Dark trying to reason with Yandere? Instead of citing his rule as law and kicking Yandere out? Lio sort of knew that Dark and Yandere were together; it’s an unspoken fact that that the whole building knows. But Lio hadn’t expected someone like Dark to be so easily influenced by a significant other.

“Darling, you’re acting like a child.” His voice isn’t even annoyed, it’s almost pleading.

But Dark loves Yandere, doesn’t he? He loves Yandere, so he doesn’t want to see him upset. Lio’s heart aches. This whole conversation wouldn’t be happening if Lio had just managed not to hurt the one he loves.

Many moments pass in silence. Lio knows stubbornness runs deep in most of the egos (probably thanks to Mark), so he can’t guess who will win this spat. But he still needs to get the funding for Bim, so he debates knocking and breaking the tension (or possibly causing more annoyance, but he can’t wait here forever). Finally, Dark sighs.

“Fine.” He sounds exasperated, but incredibly, not angry. “I will not put Yancy in the void as punishment when he returns. Is that satisfactory, Yandere?”

Another pause.

“…You won’t put him in The Cell either, right?” Yandere asks, cautious.

Dark lets out a frustrated huff that Lio can barely hear through the door. Apparently The Cell, the magically-enforced containment cell in the basement of Ego Inc., was Dark’s back-up plan for Yancy. But even Lio can tell that Yandere won’t stand for that, either.

_“Fine,”_ Dark says again, even more annoyed. “I’ll come up with something else. But whatever it is, you are forbidden to object.”

“ _Arigato,_ Yami!!” Yandere exclaims. Lio hears him kiss Dark with a loud, exaggerated _smack._ “I’ll make this up to you later, promise.” Yandere’s voice has taken on a sultry timbre.

Lio, rather than think about those implications, finally knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Dark says. Either he’s hiding his annoyance or Yandere’s promise has eased it, Lio can’t tell which.

When Lio enters, Dark is sitting at his desk, and Yandere is sitting _on_ the desk to his left. Yandere’s already pouting at the interruption, and further scowls when he sees that Lio is the one interrupting. Lio gets through the request as quickly as possible under Yandere’s hateful glare, and Dark grants it and sends Lio back to Bim to relay the message, expressing some annoyance at Bim for not coming here himself. Lio leaves as quickly as he came, trying to play it cool as usual and pretend like he didn’t hear the earlier conversation.

But it was a lot easier to play it cool when he actually _felt_ cool. Ever since Yancy ran away – hell, ever since that confession – Lio’s only felt sad, foolish, regretful.

Heartbroken.

If this is how Yancy feels, then no wonder he ran away.

_“Yancy, wherever you are, I’m sorry.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About time Lio realized he was catching feelings, huh? XD
> 
> But oh man, the next chapter is probably my favorite so far, which doesn't exactly bode well for our boys. Be prepared >:3c


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What doesn't kill you  
>  Makes you wish you were dead_  
> -Eliza Grace, “Drown”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, see those warnings about strangling and mugging up there? Yeah, it's about that time.
> 
> Enjoy...? ;w;

It’s on a totally normal night – normal at this point, anyway – that everything falls apart.

Yancy is, once again, woken by a cop when he tries to sleep on a park bench. Yancy is, once again, grumbling internally as he looks for somewhere secluded to sleep.

_“The hell are they talkin’ about, tellin’ me I can’t sleep there. What if I was homeless, huh? Then what? Assholes.”_

_“True, but you aren’t homeless. You’re just being a stubborn idiot.”_

_“I’m not going back! I can’t fucking go back, don’t you get it!?”_

Yancy is so frustrated he kicks a pebble in front of him on the sidewalk. It soars into the road and lands in a puddle, so small it hardly splashes. He’s not sure who he’s talking to. He’s never sure when he has conversations like this in his mind. He only ever talks to himself like this when he’s stressed, and he’s been stressed for days.

_“This sucks. This can’t suck any worse than going home.”_

_“Can it, though? I still can’t stop thinking about Lio. The only good thing about this stupid fucking city outside Ego Inc. is that I don’t have to avoid Lio in the hall anymore.”_

_“You’re being selfish. There are other people at Ego Inc. who miss you. There are people looking for you. Don’t they matter to you?”_

_“Of course they do, but I just…I can’t.”_

Yancy is a coward, that much is not news. He shrinks away from authority, pushes away parental figures. He gets angry and tries to swallow the problems his anger causes. For a man so hellbent on being safe, on staying enclosed and crowded and away from the world, he spends a lot of his time in captivity running from different parts of himself. Not all of them; he would never run from the part of him that sings, that dances, that listens to showtunes and taps his feet. He would never run from the goofy side, the fun-loving side, the side that loves his friends. But the anger, the equal hatred and fear of those above him, the depression and drama? He’d prefer to be free of those.

But there’s nowhere in LA he can run to get away from his own shitty personality.

Yancy keeps walking, actively shutting down the racing thoughts trying to admonish him further. But if he can’t yell at himself for the situation he’s gotten himself into, all he can think about is Lio.

Why the hell does he still love him?

He doesn’t know how long he’s been on the run, the days have blurred together. But it’s been many, in addition to the week after his confession he spent tiptoeing around Lio. Why doesn’t he hate Lio for everything? Why can’t he just get mad at Lio for ignoring and avoiding him, why can’t he curse Lio for breaking his heart? Why is Lio so impossible to get over? But it’s not like Yancy doesn’t know the answers. Lio never meant to hurt him. Lio is probably confused and uncertain, probably really worried about him right now. Lio’s not a bad person, he just didn’t know what to do. Yancy hid his love so well, too well, and Lio didn’t know how to respond to it. Yancy can’t blame him for that.

It means that everything Yancy fell in love with is still there, unmarred. Lio is still achingly handsome, unhindered by any secret cruelty. Lio is still supportive, still caring, still brave and adventurous, still too cool for school in the most endearing way, still secretly a huge dork who loves his friends and only ever makes enemies by being too flirtatious, too affectionate. It’s always genuine, nothing that Yancy can hate him for. There’s nothing sour in Lio, nothing bitter, nothing mean. It’s only Yancy’s own baggage, his own stupid crush, that makes the good in Lio hurt.

Yancy’s so lost in his sad, circular thoughts that it takes him a while to realize he’s being followed.

Once Yancy notices the man matching his speed about ten paces behind him, a rush of anger fills him.

_“How the hell did I not notice this guy? What does he want with me, anyway??”_

_“He probably wants to mug you.”_

_“It’s not like I have any money!”_

_“But he doesn’t know that.”_

_“I’ve been wearing the same clothes for days, and I haven’t showered since I snuck into that twenty-four hour gym the other night. What about me makes me look like I have money!?”_

_“Maybe he’s just an idiot. But he’s an idiot who’s following you. What are you gonna do about it?”_

Yancy’s more angry than worried. He can take a few punches, and he’s gotten less pathetic at fighting ever since Yandere took him under his wing. But what if this guy has a weapon? Yancy figures he will if he has any sense; it’s much harder to threaten people with your bare hands. It’s so late at night there’s no place busy enough to escape to, no crowds to get lost in. The man continues to follow Yancy down the street as he wonders to nowhere.

As Yancy presses forward, contemplating his shit luck, he decides to get this over with and ducks into an alley. He hears the footsteps behind him break into a run, and whirls around to meet them.

“I ain’t got any money, fuck off!!” Yancy yells at the man.

He doesn’t even pause as he runs at Yancy, with a look on his face like he doesn’t believe him.

The guy’s a bit bigger than Yancy, so he can’t avoid being tackled to the ground. He struggles, though, flailing out punches and trying to remember the training Yandere gave him. He must be doing something right, because the man is unable to hold Yancy down and pull out the weapon – a knife, it looks like – in a sheath at his side at the same time.

Yancy hasn’t been in a fight like this in a long time. Even when he went out with Yandere and Chrome he avoided the worst of the action, mostly due to Yandere protecting him. In prison he’d start fights with every newbie, and he did much of the same when he first joined Ego Inc. But he hasn’t had any reason to fight since, and his blood is boiling with it. Facing off against the mugger, punching, getting punched, watching the mugger’s hands as keenly as he positions his own, looking for the best moment to buck him off – all are sensations that Yancy’s body remembers and falls into as easy as breathing, fueled by anger.

Even when he finally gets the guy off him the guy doesn’t let up, and Yancy has to block the knife to keep from getting his face sliced open. The knife opens a line in his arm and Yancy’s vision goes red. The mugger must’ve expected him to stop and cower, but instead, Yancy tackles him twice as hard as the mugger tackled Yancy before, sending the knife sailing out of his hands, away from the fight. But Yancy doesn’t need it.

He’s beyond angry now, the gash in his arm doesn’t bleed rage, it bleeds inhibitions. Yancy’s frustration at everything boils over: His confession to Lio, the rejection, the heartache and tears, his journey away from Ego Inc., his bad night with Danielle, every night after, every night a cop woke him up and make him sleep elsewhere, the stupid squirrel that tried to get him to go home, the voice of reason in Yancy’s mind that keeps telling him the same, the thoughts of Lio that chase it away, evading the other egos, missing his friends, missing Lio, still wanting him, still loving him, still being too stupid to get over him.

Yancy doesn’t feel human. He feels like a devil, like something red-hot and full of hatred, rage, awful angry adrenaline meant to kill.

Wait, kill?

Yancy comes back to himself to find he’s straddling the mugger. His hands are so tight around the mugger’s neck that they ache from exertion. The mugger is motionless. He’s quiet. His eyes are open. There’s no pulse against Yancy’s hands.

Yancy throws himself back with a cry, scrambling away from the mugger.

_“No no no no no, not again, not again, not again, not again–”_

He curls into a ball and he’s a teenager again, he’s barely eighteen facing his mother in the worst fight they’ve ever had, she’s screaming at him to get a grip, he’s screaming at her to shut up, she’s suddenly not angry anymore, just scared, but Yancy stays angry, stays angry, and soon she isn’t screaming anymore, and Yancy’s hands hurt, they hurt, they shake, just like now, now he’s done it again, he’s still that horrible person who killed someone, he’s still a murderer, all that time in Happy Trails and he’s still the same awful person he always was.

Yancy is sobbing when he lifts his head to see someone near the mouth of the alley. A young woman, phone in hand, eyes wide and skin pale. She’s calling the police, or she’s done it already.

_“Kill her. Quick. The knife’s over there. No witnesses.”_

Yancy curls up again and wails, wails over the voice in the back of his head that’s no longer the voice of reason. He screams with terror at himself that the thought would even cross his mind, especially after it did once before, when his father came into the kitchen and Yancy couldn’t explain, but the knife on the counter made an explanation unnecessary, and it was so much messier than Yancy’s mother and the blood never came out, it never came out of Yancy’s hands, it’s still there now, it always will be.

Yancy will always be a killer.

When the police come, he doesn’t bother running. He doesn’t bother resisting. He puts his hands up when they ask, he stays still when they put on handcuffs, he allows himself to be pushed into the police car, he remains quiet on the drive to the station.

The anger leaving his system has left him cold, numb, leaking tears. He barely looks up the entire time he’s being processed, except for when they take his mugshot. The whole series of events is familiar, and though the initial shock is wearing off, a part of Yancy is still back at that time, still a frightened boy who just killed his parents. The EMT who wraps up his injured arm doesn’t meet his eyes. The holding cell they put him in is empty, lonely, as lonely as he’s been since he left Ego Inc.

_“Fuck, what are the others gonna say? What are they gonna think? What’s gonna happen now?”_

All Yancy knows is that he’s a long way from Happy Trails, and wherever he ends up next won’t be nearly so lenient.

Left alone, he spirals, he goes back to loud, ugly sobs and begging wails. How did it get so bad? How did he go so far? How did he end up here?

Yancy, for the first time in days, completely and unequivocally wants to go home.

Eventually, so late at night it’s better called morning, a guard tells him he’s allowed a phone call. By then, the crashing grief has only tapered a little, leaving Yancy shaky and scared and weepy. He jumps at the chance for a call, not even caring that he’s being observed. When they lead him to the phone, he doesn’t hesitate.

He can’t call Lio, like hell he’d call Lio about this. He can’t call Magnum either, the man doesn’t have a phone at all.

But Yandere has a phone. Yandere will know what to do.

After he dials the number and the phone begins to ring, it occurs to him that Yandere won’t recognize the jail’s number. He might not answer it. The thought sends him into such panic that his heart cracks with relief when Yandere picks up.

“Who are you and how did you get this number?” Yandere asks, voice hard and cautious.

“Y-Yan…” Yancy sobs, and for a long moment he can’t say anymore, only continue to cry. It’s been so long since he heard the voice of someone he knows.

“Yan-kun!?” Yandere cries, loud enough to hurt Yancy’s ears. “Yan-kun, where _are_ you, are you okay, what–”

“I…” Yancy sobs again, trying to force out the words. “I d-did something a-awful. Yan, I-I killed him, I didn’t m-mean to–”

“Oh, Yancy,” Yandere gasps, voice colored with sympathy that Yancy knows he doesn’t deserve, “You’re calling me from jail, aren’t you?”

Yancy whimpers in response.

“Okay, don’t worry, just – just tell me where you are. What station are you in?”

Yancy didn’t pay enough attention as he was being processed to get the name, but he answers Yandere’s other questions about the place as best as he can, through tears.

“Yan-Yan, shhh, it’ll be okay,” Yandere murmurs, clearly wishing he could offer physical comfort. “I’ll tell Yami what’s going on, and the Googles will figure out where you are, and then Yami or Wil will come get you. Just hang in there, Yan-Yan, we’ll fix this. You’ll be home soon.”

He says it like it’s that easy. He says it like Dark expunging Yancy’s arrest and taking him home will solve this. But Yandere’s not like Yancy; there’s something in his mind that lets him kill without remorse, something that lets him kill for fun. Yancy can’t understand it, the same way Yandere, as caring to Yancy as he is, could never understand how murder weighs on Yancy’s heart.

Still, the thought of going home gives him strength. He’s a little surprised at himself for wanting to leave jail so soon after going back. Maybe he’s changed, grown a little since he left Happy Trails. Maybe he trusts himself to do better next time. And besides, going home and seeing Lio is preferable to staying in a newer, rougher prison, one where Yancy would have no friends and no hope of getting any. He can’t fool himself: He’d be eaten alive in any prison but Happy Trails.

_“Is Ego Inc. just the default place to go, then? Is it the lesser of two evils now? I still deserve to pay for this.”_

_“Oh, you will. Dark’s going to be PISSED.”_

Oh, right. Yancy hadn’t thought of that.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Yancy sits in holding until sunlight breaks. He does not sleep, and his hands do not stop shaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.
> 
> At least the others finally know where Yancy is, right? :p


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But to cry in front of you_  
>  That’s the worst thing I could do  
> -Stockard Channing, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^I finally got to do the thing!
> 
> And it's finally time for Yancy to go home :') Hopefully Dark's not too mad at him...
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s late the next morning when Yancy senses that something’s off.

For one thing, the lights start to flicker slightly. For another, the security cameras in the corners of the walls spark and die. Most tellingly, though, a tendril of inky smoke winds down the hallway, slips between the bars of Yancy’s cell, and coils around his arm.

“Dark,” he gasps.

Sure enough, a moment later, the man himself appears before Yancy, hands clasped behind his back, sharp gaze staring Yancy down through his cell.

He does _not_ look happy.

_“C’mon, say something! Make it good, you haven’t seen him in days! Some sort of justification, or apology, or anything, just don’t leave him hanging!”_

“U-Um,” Yancy stammers, “Uh…good morning, sir?”

_“Really?”_

_“Don’t be like that! I’ve been through a lot lately, what did you expect me to say??”_

The cell door slams open with a metallic screech as Dark’s aura tears it open. Yancy yelps at the volume, but Dark doesn’t react. He only jerks his head towards the station’s exit.

“Come.” His voice is deep, echoing, colder than ice. His form shivers with suppressed rage.

Yancy scrambles to his feet and scuttles after Dark.

He wonders briefly why Dark isn’t just teleporting them. He broke the cameras, didn’t he? Walking through the station, Yancy sees unconscious officers and sparking computers. The place is utterly silent aside from the electrical pops and Dark and Yancy’s footsteps. Maybe Dark’s making them walk to intimidate Yancy. It’s certainly working: It’s a walk of shame on par with the road to solitary Yancy remembers from Happy Trails. It’s a similar dread, a similar fear of saying the wrong thing or making the wrong move. He’s still reeling from the night before, still exhausted yet too hyped up to think about sleep.

And he suspects his very long day is far from over.

This is confirmed when Dark opens the door to exit the station, and instead of seeing the street outside, the open door leads to nothing but blackness, thick like a wall.

_Oh, fuck._

Yancy has no choice but to follow Dark into the void, head down, trudging sadly, nervously.

They don’t walk very long, but it’s long enough for Yancy to get uncomfortable in the darkness. His own footsteps don’t make any noise, but he can hear whispers around him, unintelligible and barely there. He knows he’s sweating, skin chilled. He strains to see Dark ahead of him in the blackness. When he hazards a glance over his shoulder, he can’t see the station’s lobby anymore. He shudders, tries his best to keep his cool, but he’s being reminded more and more of solitary every second: The darkness in that windowless room, the cold permeating every corner, the way sounds echo and just barely filter in from outside, not enough to listen to, but enough to remind Yancy of what’s he’s missing. This place, this void, is far too familiar. Dark’s back ahead of him is too similar to Warden Murderslaughter, he has the same confidence that Yancy will not dawdle or run away. But Murderslaughter at least pretended to care about Yancy most of the time. Dark has no such reservations. Yancy almost whimpers, but keeps himself quiet.

Finally, Dark stops. Yancy stops just after, too focused on Dark and on behaving well to accidentally keep walking (a mistake he’s made before). Dark turns to him and glares down at him. Yancy wonders how he looks to him; red-rimmed and purple-smudged eyes, rumpled and stained clothes that don’t belong to him, a bandaged gash up his arm, shaking with fear and hurt. It’s not enough to move Dark, though; his gaze is still sharp, still cold, unyielding and unwavering.

“Do you understand,” Dark begins slowly, form already cracking with rage, “Exactly how much trouble you’re in?”

“U-um,” Yancy stammers. He knows that what he thinks the answer is doesn’t matter; it’s only what he’s expected to say. “No, s-sir.”

“I thought not.” Dark steps forward, closer. Yancy resists the urge to step back, away. “You left Ego Inc. without informing anyone, with the intent to stay away forever, or as long as you could manage.” His form snaps. “You got yourself _arrested,_ put into the system, putting every single one of us at risk. Do you understand why we are meant to live in Ego Inc.? Do you understand what could happen to us, to Mark and his channel, if we were exposed? If your recklessness brought trouble to the rest of us?” There’s three Darks now, transparent technicolor shadows of himself on either side.

“Y-Yes, sir,” Yancy whispers, unable to be louder.

“You understand, I’m sure, that you have to be punished,” Dark continues. He’s never reminded Yancy so much of Warden Murderslaughter before.

“Yes, sir,” Yancy mumbles, trying to meet Dark’s eyes but finding it very difficult. They’re flashing pure black every few moments.

A pause. Dark lets Yancy absorb the situation.

“Do you know,” he asks, “How long you’ve been away from Ego Inc.?”

It’s another question that Dark doesn’t expect a good answer from. Yancy tries to give him the correct response.

“A while, sir.” He nervously shifts his feet. “Dunno how long exactly.”

“Eighteen days, Yancy,” Dark growls, shell cracking around him with anger. Yancy winces; he must’ve responded wrong, and now he’ll pay for it. “Eighteen days, you’ve had us running ragged through the city searching for you. At any time you could have and _should_ have returned, but you did not. You actively evaded us, didn’t you? We would have found you otherwise.”

“I did, sir,” Yancy admits, bowing his head.

“I’ve not had to punish an ego for running away in a very long time,” Dark muses, “The others, old and new, know better than to break the rule of living in Ego Inc. If I had my way, your punishment would suit that crime.”

Yancy shivers, forces himself to look at Dark again. The talk of punishing Yancy has calmed Dark’s aura, and his form does not waver when he next speaks.

“You vanished for eighteen days, and my plan, my desire was to keep you here in the void for eighteen days as well.”

Yancy’s eyes go huge. His breath catches in his throat. Only for the gravest offenses would he be thrown in solitary for longer than two weeks, and even that was horrible enough. Two weeks in a small room with no windows was a horrible but effective way to go mad, and the place Yancy’s in now, this awful dark void, seems much the same. Hell, maybe it’s worse. At least solitary had a wall to count cracks in, at least solitary didn’t have demonic whispers filtering in from everywhere. And after so long of being away from Ego Inc., being away from his friends, being away from Lio, as sad as the thought of him makes him, to finding out that instead of going home, he’s only halfway done with his separation?

This is hell. _This is hell._

“Please,” Yancy gasps. He falls to his knees, groveling. “Please, please, don’t keep me here, d-don’t lock me away, I’ll do b-better, I w-won’t mess up again, I p-promise, I promise, please d-don’t keep me here, please, p-please–!”

But Dark is not Warden Murderslaughter. Even from the ground, Yancy can hear Dark’s snarl, vastly different from the smug, approving hum Murderslaughter would be making at Yancy’s display.

“Get up,” Dark growls, form snapping in pieces and recombining. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

Yancy scrambles to his feet. His vision is blurry with tears, but he doesn’t dare wipe them away.

“As I said, my _desire_ was to keep you here for eighteen days,” Dark sighs, “But that is not what I’ll be doing.” His lip curls as he looks at Yancy. “You are very fortunate that you are so close to Yandere. He implored for me to change your punishment on your behalf, so I have come up with something different.” His aura calms. “The Googles are in the process of designing a tracking chip, able to transmit a single out to a thirty-mile radius. While the chip is being developed, you are forbidden from leaving the building for any reason, no matter who offers to accompany you. When it’s finished, it will be implanted into your arm. Google, and by extension I, will always know where you are. If you attempt to run again, we will know.” Dark leans toward Yancy, composed but stony, quietly angry. “Make no mistake, you will not get away so easily next time. The only reason you are not staying in the void is because of Yandere. I can promise you that if this happens again, nothing he says will stop me from punishing you far, far worse than what I originally planned. Understood?”

Yancy is stunned for a moment. A tracker in his skin? Projecting his location at all times? It’s a daunting thought, but…not as daunting as spending two and a half weeks in Dark’s void. After the disastrous time he had, Yancy can’t imagine running again. In a way, it’s a lot like Happy Trails, to have such a restriction on himself. Yancy can’t help but find it a little comforting. All of that aside, it’s not like Dark is giving him a choice in the matter.

“Yes, sir,” Yancy says, voice hardly a breath.

Dark scrutinizes him for a long moment, and then nods, seemingly satisfied.

“Good.” He straightens. “Now, we’re going home. The others are waiting.”

_“The others?”_

_“Yandere must’ve told everyone you called.”_

Oh, to see Yandere again, to see Mags, to see Chrome and Bim and Bop and Wilford and even Lio after so long! Yancy’s heart is fit to burst. The tears from his earlier panic have dried, but they’re being replaced anew at the thought of seeing his friends again.

Dark doesn’t give much time to think about it; in only a moment, the pair appear in front of Ego Inc., with no trace of the void around. Yancy jumps at the sudden transportation. Dark, though, is unfazed, and merely opens the doors and walks inside. Before following, Yancy can’t help but look back, back at the streets he lived among for the past eighteen days. He won’t miss them much.

Most of the egos are gathered in the lobby. The moment Dark enters, a voice speaks up.

“Yami, did you find–”

Yandere’s voice cuts off as he spots Yancy, and Yancy looks back at him, back at everyone there. It’s obvious they’ve all been worried, all been searching, and they’re all wearing expressions of shock quickly warming into joy.

Magnum is the first to act. He approaches Yancy as fast as his giant wood legs will let him, laughing heartily. He scoops Yancy up in a huge, warm hug, squeezing a burst of laughter from Yancy’s chest.

“Yancy, I missed ye!” Magnum explains, “We all did, of course, but I sure was hurtin’ without ya, lad.”

“I missed youse, too, ya big lug,” Yancy replies, unable to help smiling, teary-eyed.

That seems to break the spell the others are under, and they gather around Yancy as Magnum puts him down. Yandere pushes up close, so happy to see him he almost picks him up, too. The others surround him as close as they’re able, full of questions, full of concern, yet full of exuberant joy. Yancy can hardly keep up with them all. Dark remains apart, watching from the door, but Yancy barely registers. He does, however, notice one other conspicuous absence. He looks up, over the shoulders of everyone around him, and sees Lio hanging back, leaning against the wall, deliberately casual in a way that betrays how un-casual he feels. Lio feels Yancy’s gaze on him, and lifts his head to look at him.

And oh, Yancy had hoped that Lio wouldn’t look so good when he came back, that his memory had inflated Lio’s importance, that he wouldn’t look the same in the flesh. But he’s still so beautiful, even with uneven stubble that used to be cleanshaven, even with tired, red-rimmed eyes that used to be clear. But they’re still so bright, still that same brown like dark leather, and his pretty face breaks into a smile like he’s been blind his whole life before now, and Yancy is the sun, so perfect and incredible that Lio might cry at the sight. Lio doesn’t approach, seems too nervous to, but he mouths something to Yancy from across the way.

_I’m glad you’re back._

Yancy feels the tears in his eyes start to spill over. After everything, he still isn’t ready for Lio to see him cry. So he buries his face in Yandere’s shoulder to hide his tears from the man he still loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;w;


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I might not say the one thing on my mind  
>  ‘Cause it’s too tough  
> But we lose our chance when we don’t try  
> On second thought, yeah, I think I might_  
> -Keiynan Lonsdale, “Kiss the Boy”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally at the end ;w; It was hard to get the motivation to write this chapter (I guess I'm allergic to ending things XD), but I'm proud of how it came out!
> 
> Enjoy!

The first thing Yancy does after he comes back is get his tracker put in.

Actually, no, the first thing he does is sleep.

After crying and carrying on with the others for a while, he flops into his bed and sleeps for nearly twenty-four hours. He can’t help it; his bed’s never felt so comfortable, and he’s never been so tired. After eighteen days of sleeping on benches, it’s a welcome reprieve.

The second thing Yancy does is eat. He didn’t eat too terribly out on the streets, but every bite was stolen, every bite gave him guilt. It’s nice to finally eat something he doesn’t have to feel bad about – especially after sleeping for nearly a full day, which _did_ make him pretty hungry.

So getting his tracker put in is the third thing he does, and it’s the least fun. Google is the one to do it, and he’s none too gentle about injecting the tracker into Yancy’s un-injured arm. Dark is also there to oversee it, which doesn’t make Yancy feel much better. Yancy doesn’t see the tracker for long; it’s small and blue and thin and that’s all he gets from it before it’s inside his arm.

“You may experience some lingering soreness for the next twenty to thirty minutes,” Google says, monotone, as though reciting an instruction manual. “If you attempt to remove or destroy it, we will be notified. It will not need to be replaced, unless your arm is severed from your body, in which case you will need a new tracker once your arm has regenerated.”

“Um, g-good to know,” Yancy mumbles, flexing his arm and rubbing the sore spot where the tracker now lies. He can’t sense the tracker under his skin, but if he squeezes his arm hard enough, he can just barely feel the tracker in there.

“I presume you recall,” Dark says, cracking his neck, “That punishment awaits you if you tamper with your tracker.”

“Y-Yes sir,” Yancy says quickly, shivering a little. He remembers what it was like to be in Dark’s void, even if for only a minute, and he doesn’t want to revisit it.

“Good.” Dark grins, then vanishes. Google rolls his eyes.

“You can go,” he says flippantly, gathering his materials and leaving to do…whatever it is the Googles do all day. Despite being friends with one, Yancy doesn’t quite know.

He’s always felt a bit weird here, in this huge building full of crazies and killers that _isn’t_ a prison. It feels even more like a prison now that Yancy knows he’ll be tracked if he leaves. But there’s a bit of comfort to that. Prison suited him; he only ever left because of Magnum, and because of…

Lio.

The fourth thing Yancy does upon coming back is finally, finally talking to Lio about everything. At least, he will. That’s the plan, but Yancy can’t help but be nervous about it. Aside from Lio mouthing to him that he was glad to see him from across the room when Yancy came home, Yancy and Lio haven’t spoken at all since Yancy accidentally confessed. It feels like it happened ages ago – and true, it’s been over three weeks at this point. Over three weeks of avoiding Lio, yet Yancy is still unstoppably in love with him. Yancy’s heard before that it takes a month to break a habit. Maybe if he stuck it out for another week he’d finally fall out of love, but how could he? It seems inevitable that he’d still love Lio after everything.

All Yancy knows is that he doesn’t want to keep avoiding Lio forever. He misses him because he loves him, but he misses him as a friend, too. He misses their talking, their bantering, their teasing, their support of each other’s passions. If there’s a way they can go back to that, then Yancy will do whatever it takes to get there. Even if Lio doesn’t love him back, Yancy doesn’t want to lose his friendship.

So Yancy stands outside Lio’s door, having failed to find him elsewhere in the building, and waits for the courage to knock.

_“C’mon, just do it.”_

_“I can’t.”_

_“Look, if you wait until you feel brave enough, you’re never gonna do it. So just do it.”_

_“Call me out, why don’t youse.”_

Yancy continues to stand there, paralyzed with uncertainty. Lio had seemed happy to see him the other night, but that doesn’t mean this conversation will go well. Yancy’s afraid again, but he _can’t_ run away this time. He has to face his fear.

In the end, though, he doesn’t have to make the decision at all. After several long minutes of standing in front of Lio’s door, it opens. Lio is the cause, and he pauses and goes a little wide-eyed when he sees Yancy.

“Oh, hey,” he says, voice cracking just a little. “What’s up?”

Somehow it comforts Yancy a little to know he’s not the only one who’s nervous.

“I just, y’know, wanted to talk to youse.” Yancy clasps his hands together, starts twiddling his fingers. “About…everything.”

“Yeah, we…yeah. Come in.”

Yancy does. Lio closes the door, and they sit on the floor like usual – or what used to be usual.

“How long were you out there?” Lio asks. “Did I miss your knock?”

“Nah, nah, I just…” Yancy turns a little pink. “I didn’t knock. I was tryin’ to, though.”

Lio can’t seem to help smiling a little.

“Were you trying to knock with your mind?”

“Oh, shaddup,” Yancy says, smiling back despite himself.

This is what he missed being apart from Lio. This is what he wants back.

“But really,” Yancy continues, smile falling as quick as it came, “We gotta talk about stuff. I…I guess I’ll start?” He takes a deep breath, clears his throat a little. “I shouldn’t have run away. I know that was stupid. I shoulda talked to youse before that, but I just…I was too angry and messed up about it. So I left, and I shoulda come back sooner, but I was…it felt too hard. If I hadn’t screwed up I’d still be out there.”

Lio nods. His face is drawn with concern.

“Yandere said you killed someone,” he says quietly, softly. “Is that true?”

Yancy looks away. He clenches his hands tight together.

“Yeah,” Yancy whispers. “Some guy with a knife tried to mug me, and I didn’t…I don’t know what happened. One second he’d sliced me and the next I was…I’d killed him. Choked him out just like my ma.” His voice shakes. “There was a girl who saw, called the cops. Part of me wanted to kill her, too.”

He dares not look at Lio. He doesn’t want to see the fear or disgust that must be on his face. He stares down at his own hands instead, at his own fingers twisted together with anxiety. He nearly jumps to see a third hand, much more tan than his own, come into his field of vision and grasp his un-injured arm.

“I’m sorry,” Lio murmurs, “That sounds…scary.”

Yancy’s eyes fill with tears. Of course Lio wouldn’t hate him for this, he already knew Yancy was a killer when they became friends. Lio may not endorse it, but he never let it stop him from caring for Yancy, he never let it scare him away or disgust him. Of course perfect pretty Lio still cares about Yancy after his third murder.

“It was my own fault,” Yancy mumbles, “If I hadn’t run away like a moron it never woulda happened.”

“You were being attacked, it wasn’t your fault,” Lio says, “Besides…” He pulls his arm away. “You wouldn’t have run away if I hadn’t handled your confession so badly.”

It’s finally out in the open, the thing at the bottom of the whole situation. Yancy looks up, back at Lio, and this time Lio is the one looking down at his hands.

“C’mon, Lio, that ain’t your fault,” Yancy says. He tries for a chuckle, but it comes out like a strained huff. “I didn’t mean to tell youse in the first place, and it’s not…it’s not your fault that you don’t like me back.”

_You don’t like me back._ That hurt more to say out loud than Yancy would like to admit, but it’s nothing he didn’t already know.

“I still should’ve talked to you about it,” Lio insists, “I shouldn’t have avoided you. I told myself that I’d only make you more upset, and that you probably didn’t want to hear from me after all that, but I knew that was stupid.” He shakes his head. “I know I waited way too long to call you. I should’ve talked to you before that.”

Yancy remembers getting that call, remembers throwing his phone in the pond rather than answering.

“Throwing my phone away was a little silly,” Yancy admits, a little embarrassed. Lio laughs quietly.

“A little,” he agrees, “But…I’m the one who made you mad enough to do it.”

“I guess we were both pretty stupid,” Yancy says, “But I…” He sighs, shaky. “I just…I want us to still be friends. I know we can’t have it exactly like before, but…I don’t like avoiding you, Nois. I like being able to hang out with you. I don’t want shit to be all…weird. I hope it ain’t too much to ask.”

Lio finally looks up, and Yancy is surprised to see that Lio’s eyes are wet.

“Nois–”

“I’ve had a lot of partners,” Lio says, cutting Yancy off, but not unkindly. His voice trembles. “Lots of people that I worked with, plenty that I fell in love with.”

“I know, Lio. You’ve told me about that.”

“Yeah, and I mean – you know about what happened to all of them, too.” Lio sighs. “They all died. All of them. Usually in front of me, and I…I guess I just decided to stop.”

“Stop…?”

“Loving.” Lio’s gaze is piercing, watery and sad as it is. “It felt too hard, and I felt like…like I was cursed. I still think I might be. I haven’t tested it out. I just told myself I was done with partners, done with getting hurt, that I can’t love anyone else.” Lio closes his eyes. “But…”

“But what?” Yancy is thoroughly confused now.

“But it doesn’t matter if I can.” Lio opens his eyes again, and there’s something warm there. “Because I _do._ I never noticed, never _wanted_ to notice, never had the time to think about it until…until…”

“Lio, until _what?”_ Dread circles Yancy’s chest, like he knows what’s coming.

“Until you ran away.” A tear snakes down Lio’s cheek. “Until you weren’t there, and I realized how much I missed you, and how much I needed you. I’m an idiot, Yancy, I’m a huge moron and a coward and I’ve hurt you so badly, because I just – I didn’t want to admit that–”

“Stop,” Yancy gasps. Emotion, heavy and thick and burning fills him as keenly as Lio’s words have. “Don’t fucking tell me – don’t you fucking say–”

“Yance, I’m sorry,” Lio whispers, all the strength gone from his voice. “I’m in love with you, and I was too scared to admit it, even to myself.”

“No fucking way!!” Yancy shouts. He stands, bolting to his feet. He can feel his face getting red. “There’s no fucking way I ran away from home because I was all fucking upset that you don’t like me the way I like you, when the whole time you fucking _did_ and just decided not to tell me!!”

“I didn’t realize it right away,” Lio says, still sitting, staring at the floor. “Not until you’d left already, and I started to realize how much I missed you.” A sob escapes him, and it morphs into an almost-laugh. “You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve been crying these past couple weeks. I’m a mess, Yancy. I’ve really screwed up, but the truth is that I love you back.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Yancy growls, even as his vision blurs with tears. Lio looks so small now, sitting on the floor, swathed in regret. “You don’t get do-overs, Lio. You don’t get to hurt me and change your mind and put me in the palm of your hand.”

_“But you_ are _in the palm of his hand! You still love him! This is the best possible outcome!”_

Yancy turns away from Lio. He doesn’t know if he wants to leave. Anger is boiling in him, so it might be for the best if he left now. But they can’t leave it on this note, this is so much worse than before. This is so much worse than unrequited love.

But something – someone – Lio slams into Yancy from behind, his arms lock around Yancy’s waist and chest, his head burrows into the small of Yancy’s back.

“Hey–!” Yancy yells, startled.

“Don’t leave,” Lio begs, “Please don’t leave, please don’t hate me, I–” He sobs again, and again, and slides to the ground like his legs can’t hold him up anymore.

“Lio…” Yancy murmurs, astonished, turning to look at him.

Lio kneels, bowed, weeping harder than Yancy’s ever seen him cry before. Not that Yancy’s seen him cry much before: He’s seen Lio shed a few tears after some particularly awful flashbacks, but nothing even close to this. And hadn’t Lio said that he’d been crying a lot since Yancy left? Has Lio truly been hurting just as bad as Yancy, has Lio truly been just as lovestruck, just as longing, just as afraid of this conversation?

“I don’t want to hurt you worse,” Lio whimpers, “I’m cursed to h-hurt the people I love, I know that. S-So if you don’t want to give me a chance th-then you have every right to, and you p-probably shouldn’t, just…” He manages to meet Yancy’s eyes. Tears slide down his cheeks. His face is twisted up with pain. “Please don’t hate me. E-Even if we can’t be friends anymore, p-please don’t hate me.”

Yancy’s heart burns deep in his chest, and the burn rises up in his throat, knotting itself there, nearly stopping his breath. Because his answer is immediate, comes to mind in an instant: He can’t hate Lio. He convinced himself he couldn’t love Lio, same as Lio did for him, but he can’t hate Lio either. He could never hate perfect, beautiful Lio. Lio hurt the man he loves, and he hurt himself, and Yancy did the same. And Yancy knows that this has to stop. They have to stop hurting each other.

“I don’t hate you,” Yancy chokes out. He kneels too, sliding to the floor to look Lio in the eyes. “I don’t – I feel like I shouldn’t just forgive you after all this, but you…you hurt yourself, too. We gotta cut this out. We gotta quit being stupid about this.”

Lio laughs, quiet and rough.

“E-Easier said than done, I guess,” he says. He’s still crying, and Yancy realizes he hates watching Lio cry.

“Quit crying,” he mumbles, reaching out and wiping Lio’s tears away before he can stop himself.

Lio sighs, shaky, leaning into Yancy’s hands. Yancy doesn’t realize what he’s done until he’s cupping Lio’s face in his hands – and Lio has gently wrapped his hands around Yancy’s wrist, loose enough for Yancy to pull away, but tight enough to show that he wants Yancy to stay. Yancy is suddenly very aware of Lio’s skin under his fingers, of the slope of Lio’s face under his hands, of Lio’s cheekbones under his thumbs, of Lio’s warm tears under the pads of his fingers. Lio’s eyes are still wet, still leaking tears, but bright and shining with more than just water.

_“Fuck, he really does love me.”_

“What do we do now?” Lio asks, voice weak.

“I mean…” Yancy looks for the right words. “What do you _want_ to do?”

Lio’s lips quirk into a barely-there smile.

“Honestly, right this second?” he says, laughing softly, “Kiss you.”

Yancy’s pretty sure his heart stops.

“But that’s probably not what you–”

Lio is cut off as Yancy’s lips cover his.

Okay, _now_ Yancy’s heart stops.

He can’t believe he’s doing this. He can’t believe this is happening. But he is, and it is, and Lio – Lio’s hands are moving from Yancy’s wrists down his arms to his back to pull him closer, and Lio’s mouth is so soft, and Yancy hasn’t kissed anyone in so long, and he knows Lio hasn’t either, he can taste the longing on his lips, taste salt from Lio’s tears, feel his own heart restarting and fluttering the longer they stay connected, and thank god they’re already on the floor because Yancy’s legs are jelly, and Yancy has to break away to breathe – gasp – sob – but he’s not ready to stop, they’re barely apart for a moment before Yancy’s mouth is on Lio’s again, and Lio lets him, parts his lips for something deeper, and Yancy has to break away again, and again, trying so hard to keep kissing through all the emotion, he’s starting to cry now, he can feel sobs coming up between them –

“Hey, easy,” Lio murmurs, pulling away so Yancy can breathe, “You’re gonna hurt yourself, Yancy.”

“Lio,” Yancy gasps, moving forward to kiss him again like it’s all he knows how to do.

But Lio shifts a hand into Yancy’s hair, redirects his path, gently pushes Yancy’s head into his shoulder. Yancy whines, a pathetic noise he’d be embarrassed to have made if he wasn’t so out of his mind from love.

“Shh,” Lio whispers, keeping his hand in Yancy’s hair and rubbing his back.

That’s all it takes for the dam to burst, and suddenly Yancy is sobbing into Lio’s shoulder, clinging helplessly to his back. It hurts, there’s something painful in Yancy’s chest as he sobs, something twisting up his gut, something making him tremble. But there’s something pleasant about it too, cathartic and addicting. Every tear he shed or held back ever since he admitted his love for Lio spills out, burning hot but leaving relief in their wake, a release of tension that Yancy’s been holding in himself for weeks. Yancy by now is accustomed to the pain love can bring, but he never knew love could hurt so good.

When Yancy’s tears subside, he stays curled up in Lio’s arms. He never wants to leave them.

“Are we…” Lio starts to ask, then stops. It takes him a long moment to speak again. “What…what are we now?”

“Can we…” Yancy’s beleaguered heart starts racing. “Can we…be…together?”

“Like…boyfriends?” Lio asks cautiously.

“Maybe?” Yancy says, even as his heartbeat kicks up. “After all this mess, maybe…we shouldn’t…shouldn’t call it anything yet.” He lifts his head out of Lio’s shoulder to look him in the eye, to see his serious but hopeful gaze. “But I want…this. I wanna keep doing this. But youse right, we don’t…I don’t wanna hurt myself. And I don’t want youse hurting yourself either.”

“Yeah,” Lio says slowly, “Yeah, I want…I want more of this. We can go slow, jailbird. I’m still…” He sighs. “I’m still a little worried about everything, but I…I think I need you.”

Yancy’s heart curls around itself, sweet and painful.

“I need you, too,” he whispers, “I…” A pause as he looks for anything more to say. “I’m glad to be home.”

“Yeah,” Lio chuckles, “I’m glad you’re home, too.”

For a long moment, neither person says anything. Yancy is the one to break the silence.

“Hey, weren’t you about to go somewhere when we started talking?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lio admits, grinning sheepishly. “I was gonna get something to eat – not that I’m very hungry anymore. But…I’ll go do that, if you come with me.”

“What, is it my job to make sure you eat, now?” Yancy asks cheekily.

Lio laughs, before standing and holding a hand to Yancy.

“It can if you want it to be,” he says, grinning.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Yancy chuckles, taking Lio’s hand – oh, his hand is calloused and warm – and letting Lio help him up. “Hey, literally, ‘cause we’re about to eat.”

“I guess my wordplay’s rubbing off on you,” Lio says with a smirk, leading the way to the door.

“Hey, who’s the songwriter here, huh?” Yancy bumps his shoulder as they walk. “I think I’m the one with good wordplay here.”

The pair keep bickering as they leave Lio’s room and walk down the hall, and it feels like old times. That is, until Lio grabs Yancy’s hand as they walk, and Yancy holds on in return, cheeks turning pink even as he continues the conversation. Yancy could mistake it for a dream, but Lio’s hand feels too real. Yancy could cry again at how perfect it is, at how much he’s wanted this, how he thought it was out of his reach when it was this close all along, how nice Lio’s hand feels in his, how well their hands fit together. But he’s far too happy to cry, and it’s a nice change from being too sad to smile.

_“I wouldn’t wanna repeat everything, but…”_ Yancy thinks to himself as he and Lio walk together, _“I_ did _end up here, so…I guess there are worse things I could’ve done.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did the thing ;;;w;;;
> 
> I hope you guys like this ending as much as I do. I'll definitely be writing more about these two in the future, but for now, there's other projects on my mind. One of which you'll see very soon ;)
> 
> Thanks for coming along for the ride!! :D

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to yell at me in the comments here or at my tumblr, juju-on-that-yeet! I'm an angst goblin who thrives off it >:3


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